15 may 2018 – Valle del Bove E-Bike tour

Valle del Bove Mountain Bike Tour

Meeting point: Euro Etna Tourism cabin, located next to Bar Esagonal, Piazzale Funivia.

Meet: at 10:00, delivery of equipment, bureaucratic formalities, latest information from the volcanological bulletin of the NIGV of Catania and delivery of tickets.

Departure: 10:30.

On this trip we will cross the lava flows of 1983 and 2001/02, going alongside the impressive “Barbagallo” crater cone, to touch the lava from the spring of 2017, and finally we will be facing the Valle del Bove.

The Valle del Bove is a large depression of about 40 square kilometers, and it is thought that its formation is due to the collapse of ancient eruptive centers, dating back to an age before Etna as we know it today. It is a desert landscape, covered with lava flows, the most important and impressive of which date back to the 1991/93 eruption, and some more recent, from the eruption of 2017. Its perimeter measures approximately 18 km, and it has north and south walls of variable height, between 400 and 1000 meters.

In the east, however, an almost flat area opens up, interrupted by Monte Calanna, a crater that separates the Val di Calanna from the Valle del Bove.
In addition to Monte Calanna, there are some adventitious craters, such as Monte Simone (eruption of 1811/12), and Monte Ritmann, dating back to 1986/87.

The genesis of the Valle, according to several studies, is not traceable to a single event but to a series of collapses, the last of which must have taken place about 9,000 years ago.