Mind Games in Tenerife

For a long time my boyfriend and I have been searching for a place to combine both surfing and climbing and in Tenerife, we might have finally succeeded.

Tenerife definitely ticks the boxes for a winter sun destination and we woke up to blue skies every day except one. We stayed in the village of El Rio which was conveniently only 30 mins from the airport and 5 mins from the nearest crag. 

Tenerife

We were very impressed with the climbing. In the end we tried out two of the crags “El Rio” and “Arico” but there were loads of other options to explore. El Rio was probably our favourite, with really technical fun climbing from the warm-ups upwards. It was quite common to have decent rests during the routes, which was a help with our lack of route fitness. Arico also benefitted from being in a valley so you could have your pick of sun or shade depending on your preference. Overall, the rock was great quality and unpolished.

Keeping warm in-between routes

One of my main focuses for the trip was to work on onsighting. On a recent trip to Kalymnos it became painfully apparent how much I struggle with a ‘fear of falling’ and this is most obvious when climbing on unfamiliar ground i.e. onsighting. The best thing for my onsighting I’m sure would be to practice falling indoors and out. Other than that, one simple and subtle change that I found helpful was trying to change my perspective and accepting that this is something that I find challenging.

With more experience climbing indoors I go climbing outside with an expectation of which climbs will feel easy and hard. Therefore when this expectation isn’t met, it can be disappointing and feed a negative mindset. However, this trip I tried to alter my perspective seeing onsighting at any grade as a worthy challenge to enjoy overcoming, rather than an embarrassment to avoid.  

This small but important change in perspective definitely helped though there is still a long way to go. As well as onsighting of course there was a bit of red-pointing and I enjoyed fighting my way up a very bouldery 7b at Arico.

Finally, onto the surfing…this is not an area I know much about but Ryan was happy. There were a range of places to go and plenty of surf shops for hiring gear. Also the proximity of the surfing and climbing meant a double day (climbing half the day, surfing the other half) would be possible – if you have the energy!