Bikepacking the GranGuanche (Video) – BIKEPACKING.com

Words, photos, and video by Tom Wall

The GranGuanche Trail is a 500-mile bikepacking route from Lanzarote’s northeast corner to La Palma, the jewel of the Canary Islands, via the islands of Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, and Tenerife. Riders navigate the islands by ferries, which are very accommodating of bikes and fairly frequent. The beauty of this adventure is in the diversity of landscapes. Lanzarote and Fuerteventura are hot, dry desert islands with very little fresh water, and they give way to lush mountains and forests on Gran Canaria, Tenerife, and La Palma.

The route starts in Lanzarote, a desert island, with minimal elevation gain compared to the four islands that follow. It’s a nice way of easing into the route, which I found got progressively harder on each island. That may have been fatigue, but it probably had more to do with the toughness of the terrain.

I wild camped on the island’s northern shore next to the turbulent waters of the Atlantic Ocean. After restocking in Caleta de Caballo, a cool surfing town where the beach was blowing onto the road, and I subsequently rode down to Playa Blanca, where I’d catch the ferry over to Fuerteventura.

I had been nervous about Fuerteventura. When I’d done my planning and preparation for this trip, I’d seen some really tough elevation gains across the barrancos (ravines) on the west coast, but the thing worrying me the most, was the lack of water resupply options. There were stretches of 25-30 miles of really tough riding where there wasn’t going to be anywhere to refill my bottles, and in the scorching heat, this left me slightly worried in case something were to go wrong.

I was right to be worried. The first day got progressively harder and, as expected, the barrancos really wore me down. There wasn’t any phone signal at all, which added to my concern, but after what felt like a long 50-mile day, I eventually found a sandy, hidden section near Barranco de Janey away from the fierce winds to set up my tent for the night.

Once back on some easier roads and gravel tracks, I made the decision near Costa Calma to see if I could catch a bus, the final 15 miles to Morro Jable, my finishing point. The winds were very strong, and I was battling a block headwind with no buildings or plants to shelter me, making it very challenging. Thankfully, the bus let me on and kindly stored my bike in a luggage compartment underneath at no charge. I then caught the ferry over to Gran Canaria.

As I made my way up to Pico de las Nieve, where I’d planned to stay in a refugio, a storm came in, as if from nowhere. It was a stark contrast to the dry, windy days I’d had prior. The temperatures plummeted, and I soon found myself getting cold. The winds had picked up alarmingly, and after passing a couple of miserable-looking hikers who told me that the ridge where I was going was even more ferocious than where we were currently, I cut my day short, set up my tent in the most sheltered place I could find, and battened down the hatches for the night.

The next morning, I packed up and set off for the remaining seven miles up the mountain to the road. Despite riding up steep tracks and hike-a-bike at times, I simply couldn’t get warm. I made the emotional decision to ride back down to sea level instead of ploughing on. I knew the temperature would be more favourable down there, and the chimp in my head convinced me it was the right thing to do.

I’d managed to book myself on a ferry from Las Palmas to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the penultimate island on this voyage. Little did I know, the storms were about to get worse. The ride up from Santa Cruz was easy enough, a long windy road up to Anaga Forest. From there, I would join the dirt roads and gravel tracks on the long ascent up to Teide. After only a couple of hours of relative peace, the heavens opened, and the storm reared its ugly head again. The rain this time was biblical, drenching me completely within about two minutes. My plan was to wild camp in the Anaga Forest and work my way up to Teide the following day.

After staying in a hostel instead of camping, and nearing the top of the route, I came across the inevitable. A large fence stood before me and had been erected with a very obvious warning sign, saying that the route was closed from this point. I contemplated ignoring it and continuing, but given I’d had run-ins with the Spanish police already, I didn’t want to get in trouble.

The only issue now was that the only off-road passage I was aware of up to the volcano was this one. The alternative would be to ride all the way back down to where I’d started that day and join the main roads up. When I did the calculation, the mileage was simply not going to be achievable. Not only that, but it had a knock-on effect for the rest of the trip. If I were to set up camp earlier than I’d planned, I’d then have a monster of a day thereafter, making it likely I would miss the ferry across to La Palma. Yet again, I had to change plans.

After an overnight halt in Puerto de la Cruz—miles from the route—and a bus down to Los Christianos, I caught the last ferry over to La Palma. La Palma is known as the jewel of the Canary Islands, which is a very fitting name for such a beautiful place. I had planned to complete the route in four days, giving me a bit more room for error in case things were to go wrong again.

The route here was incredibly tough-going but entirely rideable. I rode from Santa Cruz de la Palma up a long fire-road-like track, constantly climbing through ever-changing landscapes from sunny mountain sides to higher-altitude pine forests. I didn’t see a single person on any of the tracks on La Palma, which made it incredibly peaceful. I was going to Join LP-4, a main road at the top of the track, and wild camp a bit further down the next track, but I decided to set up camp before the road instead, only about six miles short of where I’d planned. The main reason for this was the climbing. I’d done nearly 7,000 feet in just 20 miles. Heavily loaded and stopping regularly for filming, I was knackered.

On the last day, the storm I’d escaped on Tenerife seemed to have risen from the ashes, albeit weaker than before, but the clouds drew in, and the winds strengthened significantly. Enough to make steering a challenge. Normally, the route would continue south here over more dirt tracks around the southern tip of the island near to Los Canarios. I made the decision to cut 10 miles off the route and ride down the road and get out of the storm, scarred by the atrocious weather on the previous two islands. Thankfully, the weather eased as I shot down the mountain to the capital city. As I was riding down into the ever-warming temperatures, I started to feel proud of my accomplishment.

See more from Tom on his YouTube channel, Cycling366.

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