Costa Blanca

Euan and I are just back from a four day climbing trip to the Costa Blanca in Spain. With direct flights from Edinburgh and very good value accommodation at this time of year the area can be a great option for some winter sun rock climbing.

Euan onsighting on steep ground at Pinos.

We climbed at:
– Echo Valley.
– Pinos, a particularly pleasant setting with good steep routes and great views to the coast.
– Gandia, which has lots of excellent routes in the sixes and sevens and some very sharp rock on the quieter upper tier.
– Puig Campana. We climbed the classic Diedros Magicos. This is a great five pitch mountain route with an abseil descent and requires trad gear. The crux moves on the last pitch are not giveaways at the grade. The approach is best made from the higher car park as described in the guidebooks. Do not park in the large, circa 8 car carpark, as this is reserved for rescue team/helicopters, but a short distance down hill. The approach is now approximately 300m up the track from the large car park, where a scramble up rocks gains a good well marked path on the plateau leading to the base of the routes.
– Alcalali. This is a superb crag with quality routes across a lot of grade ranges. There are now a lot more routes than in the older guidebooks. We found the free to download RockTopos Alcalali very useful, although routes have been added since this has been updated. A lot of the routes are around the 30m mark and some have extensions, it’s worth tie-ing a not in the end of your rope to avoid possible mishaps when lowering.

Euan in a sea of limestone on pitch one of the excellent Diedros Magicos,

Euan will put up more photos from the trip on Facebook in the next day or two. This is a great relaxed way to get lots of mileage on rock at this time of year. If it’s something that may be of interest feel free to contact the ClimbNow team.

Euan with the Puig Campana behind and the start of the climbers approach track. Do not park here, but a little further back down the road.
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