Costa Blanca Sea Cliffs
Over the last few days we've been introducing Sarah to the delights of climbing on real rock, outdoors, in the sunshine, in Costa Blanca.
Having climbed lots indoors and a little outdoors in the Peak District, Sarah was now keen to get a good dose of mileage on the rock and where better to be for that.
We started off at our local crag of Alcalali, here we climbed 8 routes from grade 3+ - 6a, so a nice steady introduction to the rock and the area. We covered a variety of basic skills, but mostly focused on lots of climbing.
I could see there was plenty adventure in Sarah, well being a Kiwi it's sort of standard! So that evening threw in a few more adventurous options for day 2. As expected, Sarah seized the opportunity for a big sea cliff adventure climb.
Sonjannika at the Morro Falqui crags never ever disappoints and today was no exception. Utterly fabulous in every way. Even the approach walk down the canyon is a blast. But once on the rock, this place really delivers by the bucket-load. Excellent rock that's super-sharp all the way. Sonjannika is a bolted 'sport climb' but thankfully the route equipper kept the bolts well spaced quite a few metres apart, so the feeling of an adventure climb is retained.
There were some guys behind us and we chatted a little on the big 'picnic ledge'. They were locals from Cocentaina and Catalonia. Super friendly too and hopefully some good info gained from them re some of the inland Costa Blanca crags...watch this space.
For Sarah's final day here she choose another of the Costa Blanca sea cliffs. This time the uber classic Rowlands Magical Mystery Tour on the Sierra de Toix sea cliffs. As Sarah hadn't abseiled before, we stopped off at the Toix Oeste crags to go through the skills and techniques required for this, climbing a route whilst there too.
After that box was ticked, it was off to the seaside for us.
Linking all 3 of the in-situ bolts for the abseil, we got ourselves prepared and had a bite to eat. A couple of other climbers turned up and instead of using our rope that was all ready to go, they set up there own, only attaching it to a single bolt and another rusting bit of iron!!!! They didn't even bother to equalise these, absolute madness!
They were climbing in the newly developed sport climbing area in the caves at the bottom of the abseil. A few other teams were already down there too. Thankfully nobody else was on our route.
A couple of scrambling pitches followed by 3 glorious pitches of climbing on the weird and wonderful rocks of Candelabra del Sol. A cool breeze help regulate our temperature and made for near perfect conditions. Topping out to that mid afternoon view over the sea to Altea, Albir, and Benidorm is sublime, the thought of lunch was pretty good too!
We finished the day with a lead for Sarah back at Toix far Oeste.
Glorious weather and a great few days on the rock. Thanks to Sarah, may you have many great days in the mountains 🙂
Mark
