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Michele Angileri

Fossato di Stroncone

Near Stroncone, the western side of Sabini Mounts is cut by a deep, majestic canyon known as "Il Fossato". However, the environment is not closed and harsh as one would expect when looking at the canyon from the outside. Long parts of the canyon are wide and wooded, and the trees often prevent you from seeing the canyon's walls high above. Furthermore, the Fossato torrent is normally dry, and only floods in case of very heavy rainfall.
So Fossato's descent features long walks, frequent downclimbs and some little rappels in a beautiful wild environment. Only the final part of the canyon is narrow.

I remember ...

Since most of the canyon is done by walking and downclimbing, and moreover the dryfalls are low, someone thought, at least 30 years ago, to equip the canyon with fixed ropes and a few steps in order to allow doing the canyon bottom-up. The falls are not vertical, so you can pull up yourself without ascenders. In the wider sections, the most easily climbable points are indicated by paint marks.

Despite this equipment I don't think the Fossato di Stroncone was ever a frequented route. As with any equipped route, in the absence of regular maintenance the reliability of fixed ropes and anchors is far from certain, and many paint marks are completely covered by moss.
So you better go through the Fossato top-down, canyoning style, using your own rope and anchors.

Copyright © 2002- Michele Angileri. All rights reserved.