San Giovanni a Piro

Approach

Starting out from San Giovanni a Piro Town Center, follow main street uphill.
After about 1Km/5/8th Mile, just before the main road makes a left bend, you'll see a narrow street forking off on the right. It has a sign saying "Campo Sportivo" and if you look down you'll see a red-white mark painted on the rock. This mark you want to follow. Walk up this street until you get to intersection with another street, and you see a house painted red ahead of you. Take a right here.
Follow this street until you get to a building site, here you want to take a left towards the site.
Once you get past the building site, follow the dirt road up, towards a three-storey house, painted grey at the bottom, orange-ish in the middle and red at the top. once you get to that house, the dirt road will fork off to the right, and to the left you'll see the house's driveway. follow the dirt road.
About 500ft/150meters before the end of the dirt road, you'll see a small building with a green door on your left, and at the end, the trail starts on your left. You'll see a picknicktable about 100ft/30meters above you.

Route Description

The trail starts at about 2200 ft/700 meters. It's in a decent condition, although it has a lot of loose rock on it. It's marked with red and white bars, painted on the rock. Above 3,500ft/1,050 meters the trail seems to dissappear, but because there aren't any trees there anymore, you can clearly make out the summit from here. Watch out with scrambling rocks here, some of them are razor-sharp.
The trail generally is easy, although it more or less follows part of the East face. If you take children with you, tell them to stay on the inside of the trail, because at some places it ends abruptly at the cliff. Some parts on the trail you need to scramble, but just short pitches. Because of this i would consider it YDS 3 instead of 2.

Essential Gear

Most important are shoes probably, because of the nature of the rock, you want to wear a boot with a stiff sole. Crampon-rated boots are preferable, although army-boots will do good as well. No sportshoes or anything with soft soles in general. When going up in summer: Water. Lots of it, about half a liter per hour you plan to stay active. When it's above 35C/95F it wouldn't hurt to make that a liter per hour either, because the ascent is on the Southeast side of the mountain, you'll be in the full sun most of the time.

Miscellaneous Info

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Images

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