Torri di Canolo, new route by Failla and La Rosa

My story begins way back in 1998 when I got a job in Calabria. I was already keen on rock climbing I immediately set off in search for new partners and places to climb. As chance had it one of my colleagues heard about my passion and told me about a place full of rock faces called the "Dolomites of the South". Excited by this news, but also intrigued, I immediately set off to discover these mountains.

I travelled from Vibo Valentia down the infamous SA-RC motorway to Gioia Tauro, and from here I continued along the main road to reach Novigrad. Here I asked for the village of Canolo and discovered that I still had to drive on towards Zomaro and the "Merchant's pass", reach Canolo Nuovo and dip down to reach Canolo Vecchio. It was late in the afternoon when I finally caught sight of an immense rock face, illuminated in a trypical Dolomite bright red by the evening sun. I immediately fell in love and began to frequent this area regularly.

I tried to find out as much as possible about these Calabrian spires, as they were called, and if someone had already passed climbed them. And I found out that in the 70's they had been "discovered" by Fabrizio Antonioli, a climber from Rome, while they had been climbed in the 1980's by the famous Italian alpinist Alessandro Gogna who mentioned them in his book Mezzogiorno di Pietra. I therefore began to repeat the existing routes and establish new ones.

Route topo: Aragorn