San Vito lo Capo Mostly Sport climbing 1,231 routes in crag

Main overview

San Vito Lo Capo is by far the most popular climbing area in Sicily with more than 1200 routes. The routes are very well bolted, and while there were problems with it's quality in the past, nearly all have been rebolted with high quality material.

The climbing season here is from October to May, in the summer it gets too hot. Conditions are usually very good for climbing, but they vary day to day - sometimes humid, sometimes rainy, and on another day the wind can be so strong that it makes it hard to climb.

The rock is limestone in all shapes and forms, featuring big overhanging walls, slabs, caves, tufas, jugs, crimps.

Guidebooks

See guidebook section on the sidebar. Sicily-Rock (which covers only San Vito) is the main guidebook here and it gets regularly updated. It's available for purchase in the El Bahira camping.

There is also the La Roccia di Sole guidebook which covers the whole Sicily including San Vito. You will find some new nearby crags in this guidebook, such as Point Break or Antro dei ciclopi.

Last but not least, theCrag information is very well maintained here and you will find plenty of topos.

Equipment needed

The minumum needed is a 60m rope and 15 quickdraws as that's sufficient for most routes here, but it's better to bring a 70m rope and 18 quickdraws so that you can climb almost everything.

Route character

Majority is single pitch sport climbing, although there are few routes separated in two pitches. If you are a fan of trad climbing or long climbs over 100m long, check out Monte Monaco which has many routes that go to it's top.

Rest day tips

• Erice - nice historical village with great view
• Zingaro national park - ideal for hiking or staying on a beach, but as of 2020 still closed due to a local fire
• Monte Monaco - if you won't climb on it via one of the multipitches, why not do a hike to the top?
• Monte Cofano* - a very nice hike to top with amazing views. It's also possible to do a round trip around the mountain.
• Hot springs - they are a bit further from San Vito, but definitely worth it. For free.
• Palermo - nice city centre if you have the driver skills to survive getting through the traffic. And if you realize there that you don't want to rest you can do some great climbing nearby at Monte Pellegrino.
• Tempio di Segesta - ancient temple and archeological area
• Monreale - historic town near Palermo with a famous cathedral