Description

🧗‍♀️⛰ Millennium cave is one of a kind among the climbing sectors in Cala Gonone, and in the whole of Sardinia too. It is the Sardinian equivalent of Kalymnos, sided with Culurgiones instead of Tzatziki. It is a gigantic natural cave, studded with hundreds of stalactites and equipped with three dozen of incredible routes. Think of extreme overhangs, tufas, knee drops, kneebars, heel hooks and shaking while sitting on a stalactite and looking for the next bolt.

You won't go to Millennium to climb 6a routes, there's just no point. You need tough muscles and training on extreme overhangs and roofs. Warming up with 6c, the fun here starts from 7a routes. These are the ones that give real satisfaction. And the harder you can climb the more fun you will have. Anyhow, to be thorough, there are also a couple of easy routes on both ends of the cave.

🌞🌡BEST SEASON
Millennium faces southeast and so the sun shines for the best part of the day. Consider climbing here during the winter, or late afternoon during the summer. The main problem during the summer though is humidity. One big piece of advice: look at the sea, if the line of the horizon is crisp and clear it means there's no humidity and you can attempt a climb. If the line is blurry and you can't make up where the sky ends and the sea starts, just choose another crag.

History

Although Cala Gonone was crammed with climbers coming from all over since the 1980s, reaching the Grotto Biddiriscottai was really hard, as you either need to down-climb a long and dangerous traverse or rent a boat. Since climbers are known to be stingy and not prone to walking too much, nobody thought of exploring the cave.

It was only in 1999 that local guru Enzo Lecis explored the cave and together with Simone Sarti equipped a 70 meters long route, naming it Millennium. The route climbed an overhang, starting with a 7a pitch and continuing with a 7c+, definitely not a route for the masses. 2 years passed by before the French climber Yann Guesquiers found out about the cave and equipped another route: Le Lion de Panjshir (8b+). In 2003 Arthur Kubista added a few more routes (up to 7c+) and this gave an outburst to many other bolters, who slowly added a great wealth of incredible lines.