Costa Blanca, Spain - Rock Climbing
Costa Blanca, Spain - Rock Climbing
Costa Blanca! In April, 2016, I rock climbed in the Costa Blanca region of Spain. From tiny roadside crags to big, all day multi pitches, there's so much to climb and you get to see a lot of different areas of this beautiful country. We climbed over beaches, in caves, on big epic seaside cliffs, in lost valleys and in real touristy areas..like right under tourists eating lunch..they looked down and were like "holy shit, there's someone climbing this cliff underneath us". Pretty cool. There's a lifetime of climbing here and I'm grateful that we were lucky enough to find some of the best, in a great season, with great conditions. It was a wild ride..
El Chorro is another climbing area that is fairly close to this region, so you can link them together if you're feeling it. We spent 1 day in Mijas, 1 day in El Chorro and then the rest in the Costa Blanca area. Here is my post from last year, when I went to El Chorro
I'm just gonna rhythm off a bunch of info that we would have found helpful when we were planning this trip..
Food, accommodation and car rentals are really cheap in Spain, so you can make a trip happen here without cost being too much of an issue. My climbing partner, Jen Bendle (Jembendo) and I, both have family in Spain, so our costs were even less.
Car Rental:
Centauro was the cheapest place to rent a car. (invoice is in a picture below). They were also really lenient with the whole process, so you never felt like they were going to gouge you at any point. Which they didn't. You pay for a full tank in advance at their insane gas price, but if you return with a full tank, they reverse that charge. Centauro also doesn't charge much for dropping the car off at a different airport. I picked up in Malaga and dropped in Alicante.
We rented a Fiat Panda, which was like a Go Kart. Pretty fun to drive and good around the serious corners you'll have to navigate. I drive stick, so we saved a bit of money there too.
GPS tip - If you activate a trip on google maps while you're still on wifi, it will nav you the whole way to your destination.
Road Tolls:
Lotta road tolls. I would budget about $10/day for road tolls.
Water:
You can't drink the water in a lot of places. You should ask before using a tap. Best just to have a big jug of clean water in the car.
Eat oranges, mangos and avocados and drink $2 wine for good measure.
Language:
Costa Blanca is popular for UK tourists, so it's not really a problem. Having said that, rock climbing will bring you to lesser known areas. You should have a method of translating if you don't know Spanish.
Climbing Gear:
We sport climb. Mostly mulitpitch - as big as we can find. We had a 70m rope and 23 draws. This got us through every climb, but just having 1 rope was really sketchy sometimes. We had to do some creative stuff to climb some of the routes we weren't willing not to climb. If I went again, I would bring a second rope for certain climbs. i.e. - For Parle, in the video, all the raps and assents were trying to figure out a rappel point that worked. Two ropes would have made things simple.
I would also bring a small rack. Neither of us really climb trad, but have. Having a small rack would have opened up the option to do a couple of cool mixed climbs that needed it.
Helmets are key. There's lots of loose rock everywhere. Tons of it.
The beach and 'cave' climbs have rusty bolts. Try not to fall when you're on these climbs..
El Chorro is another climbing area that is fairly close to this region, so you can link them together if you're feeling it. We spent 1 day in Mijas, 1 day in El Chorro and then the rest in the Costa Blanca area. Here is my post from last year, when I went to El Chorro
I'm just gonna rhythm off a bunch of info that we would have found helpful when we were planning this trip..
Food, accommodation and car rentals are really cheap in Spain, so you can make a trip happen here without cost being too much of an issue. My climbing partner, Jen Bendle (Jembendo) and I, both have family in Spain, so our costs were even less.
Car Rental:
Centauro was the cheapest place to rent a car. (invoice is in a picture below). They were also really lenient with the whole process, so you never felt like they were going to gouge you at any point. Which they didn't. You pay for a full tank in advance at their insane gas price, but if you return with a full tank, they reverse that charge. Centauro also doesn't charge much for dropping the car off at a different airport. I picked up in Malaga and dropped in Alicante.
We rented a Fiat Panda, which was like a Go Kart. Pretty fun to drive and good around the serious corners you'll have to navigate. I drive stick, so we saved a bit of money there too.
GPS tip - If you activate a trip on google maps while you're still on wifi, it will nav you the whole way to your destination.
Road Tolls:
Lotta road tolls. I would budget about $10/day for road tolls.
Water:
You can't drink the water in a lot of places. You should ask before using a tap. Best just to have a big jug of clean water in the car.
Eat oranges, mangos and avocados and drink $2 wine for good measure.
Language:
Costa Blanca is popular for UK tourists, so it's not really a problem. Having said that, rock climbing will bring you to lesser known areas. You should have a method of translating if you don't know Spanish.
Climbing Gear:
We sport climb. Mostly mulitpitch - as big as we can find. We had a 70m rope and 23 draws. This got us through every climb, but just having 1 rope was really sketchy sometimes. We had to do some creative stuff to climb some of the routes we weren't willing not to climb. If I went again, I would bring a second rope for certain climbs. i.e. - For Parle, in the video, all the raps and assents were trying to figure out a rappel point that worked. Two ropes would have made things simple.
I would also bring a small rack. Neither of us really climb trad, but have. Having a small rack would have opened up the option to do a couple of cool mixed climbs that needed it.
Helmets are key. There's lots of loose rock everywhere. Tons of it.
The beach and 'cave' climbs have rusty bolts. Try not to fall when you're on these climbs..
Climbs We Did!El Navegador Pillar 7A+ Luna 7A Gorilas En La Roca 6C+ El Dorado 6A+ Parle 6A+ Costa Blanca 6C+ Delicatessen 6B+ Caleidoscopio 6A Orange Bolts 6A Green Bolts 6B Yellow Bolts 6A Elendigliches 6A+ Yoga Vertical 7A Ohu! Que chungo 6C Condon Roto 6C Nazurath 6A Historias de los Stones 6B+ |
The Guide Book!
|
