Aiguilles de Bavella
Interesting facts
- Climbing routes on Punta di u Furnellu, one of the highest summits of the Bavella massif, reach about 700 m in length.
- Of the seven Asinau towers, traditionally numbered one to seven from south to north, only Punta di a Vacca can be reached by an ordinary hiker.
- In Corsican the needles are called I Forchi di Bavedda, and the towers at their core are known as the furchi d'Asinau.
- The Col de Bavella is the southernmost of the four great passes that let roads cross Corsica's mountainous interior from one coast to the other.
- Cyclists rate the eastern side of the Col de Bavella as the hardest climb on the island, with its final 7.4 km averaging 9 percent.
- The Bavella cirque lies inside the Regional Natural Park of Corsica, created in 1972, which regulates visits to the site.
- Although the needles are smaller than the Aiguilles de Popolasca in the north of Corsica, they draw far more walkers and climbers.
Why it is worth it
The Aiguilles de Bavella are a crown of jagged red granite needles in the mountains of southern Corsica, rising above the Col de Bavella (1,218 m) in Corse-du-Sud. The range separates the Alta Rocca uplands from the island's east coast and feeds the Solenzara river, long regarded as the traditional dividing line between northern and southern Corsica.
The heart of the massif is a row of seven towers known as the tours d'Asinau, from Punta di l'Acellu (1,588 m) to Punta Alta, the highest needle at 1,855 m; nearby summits reach 1,899 m, and Monte Incudine, the highest peak of the area, stands at 2,134 m. Two kinds of granite make up the range: a coarse, pale stone that weathers easily, and a fine-grained, potassium-rich pink granite that cooled quickly and is much harder. Weathering has hollowed the rock into tafoni — cavities of every size that give whole cliffs the look of petrified sponge — and in places has bored straight through it, as at Punta Tafunata, the pierced mountain, at 1,312 m. Pines bent and twisted by the wind cling to ledges and ridges, and the forest of Tova spreads below the towers.
The needles have drawn climbers since the 1920s, when the first parties came from France, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and Austria. In the 1960s Werner Krah opened the first sixth-grade routes on the Campanile Santa Lucia, and from the 1970s new lines multiplied, with today's hardest climbs reaching the eighth grade. Walkers know Bavella from the GR 20, Corsica's long-distance mountain trail, which passes the Asinau refuge (1,536 m) and offers an alpine variant threading between the towers by the Bocca di u Pargulu (1,662 m). At the pass itself stands a statue of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, beside the small hamlet of the Col de Bavella.
Getting there
The D268 crosses the Col de Bavella, linking the Alta Rocca village of Zonza on the south-western side with Solenzara on the east coast. Ajaccio is about 42 km away as the crow flies, considerably more by the mountain roads. Figari Sud-Corse Airport (FSC) is about 36 km away in a straight line.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Aiguilles de Bavella are rocky spikes of red granite that dominate the hill of the same name on the island of Corsica in France. At 1218 m, the hill connects the Alta Rocca to the east coast of Corsica. This massif is smaller yet much more popular than the "aiguilles de Popolasca". The site is characterized by jagged peaks, large rock walls and pine trees twisted by the wind. It is a popular spot for hiking and rock climbing.
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