After climbing Mount Aragats in Armenia I was off to Tenerife! It started with no sleep at the airport in Jerevan and a delayed flight so I spent the whole night at the airport trying to stay awake. Then I got to Warsaw and I had missed my connections (had 4 flights to get to Tenerife from Jerevan) so there was no chance I could get there this day. Instead I was looking at options: Where in Europe is there a direct connection to Tenerife? I decided to go to London and fly from there the next day. When I finally arrived the car rental company was closed so I couldn´t get my rental car. Had to get another one from another company. So got to my hotel around midnight. The next day it was time for the climb but when I got out to my car it was gone! It had been taken because I was to tired the day before so I did not notice I parked on a yellow line. So I had to pay 95 euro at the police to get it back. So way too late I was at the foot of Teide, the highest mountain in Spain.
The volcanic landscape is super cool. I decided to take a short cut to gain some altitude faster so instead of the normal gravel road up to the trail I just walked on a barley visible trail from the road up a more steep path on the mountain.
But that was not the best idea because I had my approach shoes from La Sportiva on and they are low so when I walked in the scree I got so many stones inside the shoes. But I didn´t want to turn back so I continued anyway and stopped every 5th minute to empty my shoes from rocks.
The hike should take around 6 hours to the top. I was trying to get there before sunset to enjoy the view so I walked pretty fast.
I also did not have a permit for this day. I had one for two days later but due to changes in my schedule I had to climb earlier so going after the lift closed was smart because then there would be no guards stopping me.
The summit! I made it up in 4 hours. There was a guy from Swiss up there too but apart from that I was alone.
It was super windy.
Views were amazing!
And then I started going back down to the car. Halfway down it got dark. I turned on my headlamp and continued. I started walking on the gravel road back down when I got to it but decided it would take too long so instead I tracked back with my GPS the way I came from, the shortcut over the steeper part of the mountain. But since there is almost no visible trail there my GPS tracks was my only help in navigation. I was lucky to have it! Then the battery on the watch said 2% and I was thinking it will probably die before I get down so I tried to find a marker against the sky to walk towards for navigation just in case but I got to the road with 1% battery left and from there I could just walk back to the car and drive back to the hotel.
The visit on Tenerife was filled with set backs and difficulties but I felt the struggle with them made this summit extra worth for me. It was not my first time trying to come here. I was suppose to go in the winter but then the mountain was closed due to ice and snow and bad weather. I was happy to have the summit done and from here I continued to Berlin to pick up my van and climb the highest mountain in Germany!
