Costa Blanca climbing

John rehydrating whilst observing the weather take a turn for the worse

Well after 3 days of fantastic climbing I thought I would settle down with some duty free whiskey and make a wee note of what we have been up to. John is really wanting to push his grade this year so when I suggested we go to Spain for 7 days climbing he jumped at the chance. I have made an itinerary for the whole week, it took me a while to do as there is so much amazing rock to climb. The first two days were single pitch climbing, to see what John can and cant climb. As were staying at Sella, the local crag was ideal. 5 minute drive, 28 second walk in, 9 routes later we were done for the day. Day two we went into Vall de Guadar and found a fantastic newly developed crag which wasn't polished which gave us another 9 routes in the perfect temps. In the distance we could see a storm brewing..

Entering the final pitch on the Toix Ridge

Top of the climbing..now time for scrambling

Today our forecast was confirmed and it rained all night and up until about 9am. This was fine as we knew it was to clear and this allowed time to explore to local marina and drink some lovely coffee. After a relaxing morning we climbed the Toix Ridge. It was bloody brilliant. 5 pitches of nice climbing to a fantastic airy ridge that required a wee bit of rope work, especially with the high winds we had.

I know Spain is meant to be warm but it was very windy!

Top of the climbing, scrambing to come

Doesnt look bad but it was super windy!

Thumbs up, start climbing!

After this our day wasn't over. We hurried down to the sea cliffs to climb the fantastic Magical Mystery Tour. 5 fantastic pitches above the sea given sport grade 5 and felt like a nice HVS 5a. We made two abseils in, full committed ourselves as we only had 1 60m rope, either a climb out or a swim out would be suffice but fortunately all went to plan. So all in all a great contrasting day, 5 pitches to a summit ridge followed by two abseils and a fantastic multi-pitch sea cliff climb!