Teide

Teide, 3,715 m, is the highest point in Spain and the highest summit of any island in the Atlantic. Measured from the ocean floor it stands some 7,500 m tall, making it the third-largest volcanic structure on Earth after Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The cone rises from the Las Cañadas caldera, a vast horseshoe-shaped depression about 16 km across whose floor, at 2,000 to 2,200 m, is a desert of lava flows, pumice fields and wind-sculpted rock. The summit is a small cone, El Pitón, with a crater about 100 m wide; on the western flank rises its twin, Pico Viejo, with a much larger crater 800 m across.

Teide is an active volcano. Its most recent eruption, in 1909, came from the Chinyero vent on the north-west rift, and the Narices del Teide eruption of 1798 poured lava from the flank of Pico Viejo. Because towns such as Garachico, Icod de los Vinos and Puerto de la Cruz lie below it, the United Nations listed it among its Decade Volcanoes for special study. For the Guanches, the island's people before the Spanish conquest of 1496, the mountain was sacred and the home of Guayota, a demon often pictured as a black dog; sailors on Columbus's first voyage in 1492 reported fire on the peak.

The volcano and the entire caldera form Teide National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2007 and the most visited national park in Spain and in Europe, with more than 5.2 million visitors in 2024. An inversion layer at about 1,000 m usually traps the trade-wind clouds below, so visitors drive up through pine forest into dry, brilliant air above a sea of cloud. The climate at altitude is continental, with big swings between day and night, snow in winter and an ultraviolet index above 11 in summer. Endemic plants and birds such as the blue chaffinch live among the lava, and the Teide Observatory uses the clear, stable skies on the mountain's slopes. At sunrise and sunset the peak throws a perfect triangular shadow more than 40 km across the sea, reaching La Gomera at dawn and Gran Canaria at dusk.

A cable car climbs from the roadside at 2,356 m to 3,555 m in about eight minutes, and footpaths lead from the upper station along the rim; the final 200 m or so to the summit need a free permit, and several footpaths let hikers climb to the upper station on foot. The air is thin up here, and altitude sickness can hit people with heart or lung conditions; descend at once if you feel unwell.

Getting there

Teide is in the centre of Tenerife, within the municipality of La Orotava; Puerto de la Cruz on the north coast is about 19 km away in a straight line, and Realejo Alto about 13 km. A public road crosses the caldera from north-east to south-west, and the island bus company TITSA runs one return service a day from Puerto de la Cruz and from Playa de las Américas. Tenerife South Airport (TFS) is about 26 km away and Tenerife North (TFN) about 38 km.