Walking in Tenerife

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Hints and tips for mountaineering on Tenerife.

Mountains :

First of all, one does need a map; I found them very difficult to come by. Eventually I found some at the Centro Commercial near the north-east beach in Puerto de la Cruz at a small book-shop on the second floor. The island is divided into 8 regions for the maps, to cover all the mountains in the national park you need 4 maps, but you probably will do fine with 2 of them called Las Montanetas and Las Nieves.

Watch out for the rangers with cars like that pictured below. A tourist guide told us that if one takes a rock or plant from the national park with the intention of taking it home, there was a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison! Of course it seems incredibly severe, but it does say something about the attitude prevalent in the national park. The authorities have made the decision to protect the park and flora with these rangers as it has been found in the past that more and more visitors simply ignore signs to keep on the footpaths and not to take rocks or pick flowers. Most of the rock samples taken illegally end up in hotel waste bins and the flowers that are picked and taken away often die in the heat of a hire car or tourist bus, this of course also means that those visitors arriving later in the day have no flowers to see. At the information centre in the Parador there is a list of everything that is illegal, after you have read it you will find reason to doubt if it is legal to breathe, but common sense will dictate that we as visitors are being allowed to see someone else’s home territory and should treat it as we would like guests to treat our homes. It is illegal to camp both in the national park and on all beaches.

I have made separately pages for the permit to the Teide summit and the transportation. Please contact me if you have questions.