More sea cliff adventures and fun, Costa Blanca

El-Dorado, Sea-cliff-climbing-Costa-Blanca

Looking down from the top of pitch 2 - El Dorado

After our adventures in the Malafi gorge, we decided on some more conventional rock climbing antics. First up being the super steep and sustained El Dorado on the Toix sea cliffs near Calpe.
The route starts from a small beach below Pueblo Mascarat. Pitch 1 traverses out over the sea to a spacious ledge, this is a good warm up pitch with a few tricky moves but nothing too difficult.
Things change quite dramatically thereafter!

Pitch 2 is steep and unrelenting, but all of it is on magnificent rock and all the moves are brilliant. An absolutely fantastic pitch of climbing, one of the finest I have ever done. By the time I reached the belay my arms were so tired it took a huge effort to clip the rope into the bolt, I was very close to falling off at that point, but thankfully mustered some strength from somewhere.
Sam took over for pitch 3. This started very steeply and with some awkward moves. Soon this pitch progressed onto slabby terrain, giving a slight respite to the arms.

2 abseils took us back down to the beach for a late lunch by the sea.

A grand afternoon.

Other notable routes this week have been: Via Pany on the Peñon, Sonjannika at Morro Falqui, and GEDE at Mascarat.

Good climbing, thanks Sam

​Mark

El-Dorado-sea-cliff-climbing-Costa-Blanca

Sam leading the final pitch of El Dorado

Categories

Archives