Cranky Climbing

This is a mini-post about bouldering in Almenara, a village in southern Spain. It's a small place, where we stopped by when we started heading back north from Chulilla. I had only seen a few photos of the place on 27 Crags, so my goal was to just find the rocks and check out the place. But as it turned out, the boulders or actually more of a cave is a really cool place to climb! There are actual boulders as well (somewhere in the bushes), but I recommend going straight to Cova del Sol. It's within a 10-minute walk uphill from the night club Garaig in the outskirts of Almenara.


The routes at Cova del Sol are pretty special, since many of them are very steep, but juggy. I guess it's justified to talk about roof climbing. I don't know where to find a complete guidebook for Almenara or if there even is one, but some of the routes are listed on 27 Crags. You can have a good time there even without knowing the grades, though! There's enough chalk on the walls/roof to mak…

Chulilla is one of the more popular climbing destinations, that we've visited so far. The name started popping up as soon as we left Lisbon area and headed towards Spain. "A ton of long, vertical routes", "soft(ish) grades, if you manage to find the rests", "wonderful place to camp" were some of the things we heard about Chulilla before arriving there. And were the rumors true? Read on to find out. These tips for climbing and camping in Chulilla are based on first-hand experience around April 2018.
Equip yourself with plenty of quickdraws + 80 m rope The routes in Chulilla really are L-O-N-G. I recommend packing a set of 20 quickdraws and an 80-meter rope, if you're planning on climbing in the canyon. At some other sectors you might get away with less draws and a slightly shorter rope, but in the canyon you'll end up missing out on a great bunch of amazing routes. Long Dong John (6b+) at Chorreras was my first route there, and of course I had …