Not your average trekking pole, the ginormous staff this mountain climber carries lets him vault around the hillside like a goat. The metal-tipped pike is called a garrotte and is used in a Canarian folk sport, Salto del Pastor (Shepherd's Leap).
Salto del pastor practitioners have developed a wide range of techniques to facilitate quick and agile movement across extremely difficult and dangerous terrain. These techniques range from pole-vaulting across crevices to the "dead drop" in which the practitioner leaps into space from heights of up to eight metres, jamming his/her garrotte into the ground below and then sliding down the pole. There are many other types of leaps, depending on the nature of the obstacle that needs to be cleared. Some of these are so fraught with risk that they have given rise to beautiful legends, such as the salto del enamorado (lover's leap) and the salto de media luna (half moon leap).
