Take a walk on Tenerife’s wild side

Mention Tenerife to most people and they instantly think of beaches, water parks and Brits enjoying some holiday sun.

There is another side to this remarkable Canary Isle though, a world of soaring volcanoes, epic gorges and lush rainforests, that is best explored on foot.

I’ve been lucky enough to hike all over the world and I put Tenerife right up there with any walking destination I’ve been to.

My favourite hikes are up in the Teide National Park. Mount Teide is the star here, a hulking 3,718m high volcano that is Spain’s highest peak. You can ‘cheat’ and take the cable-car up for a walk around its higher reaches, but to get to the top you have to hike. I recommend spending a night at the Refugio de Altavista, which sits at 3,260m. The stars up here are something else.

Stay at the Refugio de Altavista and you can savour one of the most remarkable sunsets you will ever see as Teide forms what is said to be the world’s largest shadow across the Atlantic Ocean.

Being up this high it is also just a relatively short scramble up to the summit for one of the world’s finest sunrises.

Teide with or without the sunsets and sunrises is a remarkable place to be, as steam bursts from the ground, the thick smell of volcanic sulphur wafts into your nostrils and all of your senses go into overdrive.

Even if you don’t want to test yourself with an energetic bash up Teide you can still enjoy the rest of the national park.

The Roques de Garcia make you feel like you’ve just landed on another planet.

Here, in this rocky outcrop, near the main road through the park, twisting lava pinnacles and vertical magma streams rise up from the stark red plains looking more lunar than earthly.

You can tackle the Roques de Garcia as part of the Tenerife Walking Festival, which celebrated its inaugural staging this year and it is already helping really put Tenerife on the walking map.

Walkers were led this year on 15 trails across the north of the island. The walks were split into three categories coastal, volcanic and forest. Each walk is led by an experienced local guide who knows all the best trails and trail info.

The walking festival is based in Puerto de la Cruz in the lush Orotava Valley, the most fertile valley on the island. It is an oasis that is awash with banana plantations, chestnut orchards and pine forests.

The resort town itself has beaches where you can relax between walks.

I joined one of the hikes to La Caldera, yet another side to Tenerife. It’s more Jurassic Park than Tenerife theme park, with laurel and pine trees filling the volcanic crater here, which the trail has to twist and snake around. It is a testing route too with a series of cables bolted to a rockface to tackle en route.

Another way of enjoying the island’s walks is taking a self-guided walking trip. I’ve been on a week long adventure with Scottish-based Macs Adventure and heartily recommend its holidays.

If you can read a map you should have no problems following its myriad routes. There are walks planned for every day and often options too. I really like that all your accommodation is included as are transfers between hotels and to many of the routes.

One of the highlights of my Macs trip was a day in the Anaga mountains. You don’t find many tourists up here in the wildly beautiful subtropical rainforests.

You could not get much further from most people’s images of Tenerife. Forget sandy beaches and dry volcanic plateaus, this is a seriously wet netherworld of gnarly trees, remote farm tracks and sloping vineyards. Birds of prey patrol the skies, exotic wildlife bursts either side of the track and the Atlantic Ocean is never far away.

The Anaga is the wettest part of Tenerife and it feels like it, though the upside is that there is greenery everywhere you look. I set out from Cruz de Carmen and spent a day wrapped in the ravines, whitewashed cottages and little goat farms.

Another highlight of my week following the Macs routes was the thrilling steep plunge down Masca Gorge. This one is not for the fainthearted as you eke your way down narrow trails and riverbeds into this rugged gorge from the pretty village of Masca.

Eventually you come out on a sandy Atlantic beach from where you can catch a transfer to Los Gigantes.

This resort feels like another world and it is. Here, there are hotels, restaurants and beaches to explore. When I ended my stay here after a week lost in the volcanoes, virginal rainforests and wild gorges all I wanted to do was head back into the wilds, into the other side of Tenerife.

Report by Robin McKelvie