Rock Climbing around San Vito lo Capo

The largest climbing area in Sicily is around the famous coastal town of San Vito Lo Capo, near the city of Trapani. This compact area provides around 1,280 routes ranging from single pitch sport routes above the sea to trad multi-pitch routes.

Along the west side of San Vito is a great coastal cliff, called Scogliera di Salinella overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. This Scogliera di Salinella cliff is nearly 4km long and provides almost 900 single pitch sport routes on a mixture of good quality limestone and marble rock. The climbing is varied with tufas, cracks, technical slabs, overhangs, caves and powerful roofs across a wide range of grades (F2a to F9a). However, most of these routes are in the easy to mid-grade range, with around 700 good quality routes graded at F6c+ and below.

Rising up on the east side of San Vito is Monte Monaco and Pizzo Monaco, where there is a mixture of bolted and trad multi-pitch routes between 150m to 400m long, plus some single pitch sport routes. Most of the multi-pitch routes are graded F6b and above, requiring trad gear and double 60m ropes. However, there is 1 route that is 645m long and graded at F5c. This 18-pitch route, called Via Fratelli Titt, the first 8 pitches are bolted, and the rest are trad – an excellent day’s adventure.

To the south of San Vito there are a number of crags at Castelluzzo near Macari and Custonaci near Scurati. Here there is a greater concentration of harder routes from F7a and above, with plenty of tufas.

Climbing guidebooks for San Vito: There are 4 different rock climbing guidebooks covering the San Vito area that are available to buy from our shop.

• The Sicily Rock – San Vito Sport Climbing Guidebook describes 1,280 routes in the San Vito area and was published in 2024.
• The Rockfax Sicily Sport Climbing Guidebook covers almost 1,500 routes around San Vito along with a selection of routes in the Palermo area at the famous Monte Pellegrino and Monte Gallo crags.
• The Sport climbing in Sicily guidebook describes nearly 800 routes around San Vito and includes a unique code to download an app to the full guidebook that is free of charge.
• The Sicily Rock Climbing Guidebook - Crags (Roccia di Sole) is a comprehensive guidebook covering the single pitch sport climbing areas across the island of Sicily, including San Vito.

Best time of the year to climb at San Vito: The ideal time to rock climb at San Vito is from October to mid-May, as most of the crags face south and west. However, apart from the very hot summer months, it is possible to climb at San Vito throughout the year, as many of the crags in the Monte Monaco and Pizzo Monaco area face east and are perfect for hot sunny days.. The San Vito Lo Capo area is a great location for combining a sun, sea and rock climbing holiday.

Gear required: The majority of the sport routes are between 2om to 30m long. Some routes are 35m long, a few even longer, but on almost all of these routes you will find lower-offs in between. So, a 60m rope and around 14 to 16 quickdraws will be more than sufficient. For the multi-pitch routes on Monte Monaco and Pizzo Monaco, double 60m ropes and trad gear are recommended.

Accommodation: San Vito has plenty of self-catering accommodation options and hotels, plus there is even a campsite situated above the Scogliera di Salinella crag, with the first routes being only a 1-minute walk away.

Travel: Getting to San Vito is very easy and usually cheap, with excellent connections to Trapani and Palermo airports from all over Europe.