An excursion from La Ciotat
Adventure course in the calanques
It’s 9:20 am when our instructor, Guillaume, welcomes us at the meeting place. We are in the town of “La Ciotat”, at the entrance of the Calanques National Park. The address is easily accessible, we parked a little further down the road, and walked a few minutes to reach the starting point of the activity.
Guillaume introduces us to the course we will carry out : a 3 hours excursion during which we will follow reminders, tyrolean traverse and via cordata on the cliffs : the program is attractive, and does not require any particular knowledge in climbing. We will then equip ourselves with a harness and a helmet, like adventurers!
Once the whole group is equipped (made up of a family of 4 and 3 couples), we can start the activity and we set off on a path, in the heart of nature…
an intermediate route between classic hiking and climbing
The sun is already high, but the heat is pleasant. We wind our way through the scrubland to get closer to the cove and reach the first stage of the route. We arrive at the top of a large rocky mass, where the instructor installs a rope. It will be used for our first descent by ropes.
After a few tips on how to position ourselves and get the hang of the descent, we all look at each other to see who will go first : it won’t be me! A slightly braver boy decides to take the plunge and lead the way. He then sits down facing the cliff, and with both hands on the rope, he starts to descend the wall. Each one of us takes a turn to descent by rope, down several times and end up in the hollow of a fault a little further down.
In the end, it’s not that complicated, the hardest part is getting started
