Three Volcanoes - Tenerife

The north-west volcanic rift runs from Teide towards Santiago del Teide and is where much of the most recent volcanic activity occurred on the island, including the most recent eruption in 1909. Most people walking in this area, head for Montaña Chinyero, site of the 1909 eruption or Montaña Garachico, site of the 1706 eruption that destroyed much of Garachico. I have walked in these areas many times but for this walk I wanted to try something different so headed for some lesser known volcanoes in the area. The three volcanic cones I climbed on this hike weren't particularly high but two of them, Montaña Calderón and Montaña Cueva del Ratòn, had no real path over them and required very steep, descents on loose picon slopes. The other cone, Montaña de Las Cuevitas had a path of sorts and was a straightforward up and down climb. The views from the top of all three were stunning and the surrounding countryside was a beautiful mix of lava fields and pine trees interspersed with red volcanic terrain.

NOTE: Although a lot of the route is on easy forest tracks and paths, there are sections that require both care in route finding and negotiating the difficult terrain. After the short section on the TF38 Teide-Chio road, there is a pathless section across a very rough lava field. This is difficult underfoot and care needs to be taken to locate occasional cairns to guide you through. As already mentioned, the summits of both Montaña Cueva del Ratòn and Montaña del Calderón are pathless and require very steep descents on slopes of loose picon. Other paths are often narrow and occasionally ill-defined. I have graded this walk 'difficult' based purely on these sections, otherwise the rest of the walk is 'moderate.