Rain, or the threat of it, is a big part of the life of an English rock climber. A fair amount of time is spent planning how to avoid rain, waiting for rain to stop, finding somewhere that it isn’t raining or just being rained on. In 2012, I seemed to spend far more time than usual in this dance with the rain and so wanted somewhere for my honeymoon in November where I could climb without having to worry too much about rain driving me off the crag. Gran Canaria, the biggest of the Canary Islands, was the destination my wife and I settled on.
By being off the coast of North Africa, Gran Canaria has a warm climate that is prevented from being too hot by the trade winds that blow in off the Atlantic. During the time I was there, the temperature varied between 23C to 29C and could be pretty humid. The rock is volcanic and made up of strata formed by eruptions and eroded into a rugged, mountainous interior with canyons (barranco) fanning out from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Read more
