Map of Rock Climbing Areas of Sicily

Rock Climbing in Sicily

Rock climbing in Sicily offers everything from big wall multi-pitch rock climbing to single pitch sports routes, with the added bonus of visiting an island steeped thousands of years of civilization and culture. The rock climbing here offers a great sense of adventure and there is a warmth and hospitality from the islands population that is always willing to help tourists and foreigners. The rock climbing on Sicily can be broken down into 4 main areas:

1 – Trapani – San Vito Area
Near Trapani is one of the most famous seaside resort of Sicily called San Vito lo Capo. Rising up from the town is Monte Monaco & Pizzo Monaco, where there is a mixture of bolted and trad multi-pitch routes between 150m to 400m long as well as single-pitch sports routes. Along the coast on the west side of San Vito Lo Capo, a new sport climbing area has recently been developed. Nearly 4km of coastal cliffs have produced hundreds of quality limestone single pitch routes mainly in the easy to mid grades (half the routes are F6b+ and below). Published in 2011 the most up to date guidebook for this area is called Sicily Rock – San Vito Sport Climbing, which is available to buy in our shop. This area is perfect for combining a sun, sea and rock holiday.

2 – Palermo Area
Rising up within the city of Palermo is the mountain of Monte Pellegrino, and is the largest climbing area in Sicily. This mountain is over 600m high and extends from south to north for several kilometres, offering a continuous sequence of limestone walls exposed on every side. The majority of the climbing is on the west side of the mountain and in all there are 8 major crags, offering single pitch and multi-pitch routes up to 200m long. There are 100’s of sports routes here, as well as long classic routes, making it the most important rock climbing area in southern Italy. However there are still enormous possibilities for new routes and long stretches of the wall are still untouched.
To the north of Palermo and rising from the sea is Monte Gallo. It is an isolated mountain consisting of a number of different peaks, with some walls up to 400m high. The rugged nature of the mountain and its steep walls are similar to the Dolomites! All of the routes are multi-pitch giving big wall bolted routes up to 370m long on good quality limestone rock.

3 – Messina Area
In the northeast side of Sicily the rock climbing around Messina consists of 8 separate limestone crags, some of which offer multi-pitch bolted routes up to 150m long. The largest crag is at Castelmola, near Taormina, which offers single pitch sports climbing with nearly 50-recorded routes across a good selection of grades.

4 – Siracusa – Ragusa Area
To the south east of the island there is a large concentration of crags between Siracusa and Ragusa, which are mainly single-pitch sport routes offering a good selection of routes across all grades.
However at Monti Climiti there are bolted routes up to 100m long with 8 different crags spread out on 3 sides of the mountain. Generally there are not many routes established at each crag, and the number of bolted routes varies from 5 to 21. However the crags are separated by only a few minutes drive from each other with only a short walk to each crag. There is a good selection of single pitch routes as well as bolted multi-pitch routes across all grades on limestone rock.

Rock Climbing in Sicily - Logistics

The ideal time to visit Sicily to go rock climbing is from autumn right through to spring. It is not unusual to be climbing in shorts and t-shirt on beautiful crags overlooking the sea during the winter months.

For the majority of the multi-pitch and all of the single pitch sports routes at least a 60m rope is recommended, with around 15 quickdraws. However for some of the multi-pitch routes it would be advisable to take 2 half 50m ropes and trad gear such as nuts and cams.

There are 2 guidebooks that cover the rock climbing found on Sicily. The largest of these is called "Di Roccia di Sole/Climbing in Sicily", and it describes 68 climbing areas across the island, including sport and multi-pitch routes. The second is called “Sicily Rock – San Vito Sport Climbing”, which only describes the sport climbing found at the seaside resort of San Vito Lo Capo. Both of these guidebooks are available to buy from our shop.

Average Peak Temperature for Palermo, Sicily

To view a larger photograph showing the variety of rock climbing and sports climbing to be found around on the island of Sicily, please click on the thumbnail images.