Monday, January 19, 2015

Soooooo many new crags and new routes for a New Year!


Happy New Year everyone! such a long time since the last post but I think facebook seems to be trying to take over the world and as much I hate to admit it, it is way too easy to put information on there instead of on this blog!

Our New Years Resolution is that we will update this blog more often and make it the first point for information about the new routing that is going on over here, and boy is it going crazy at the moment.

I have decided to set myself a personal goal (Rich) which will be to average one new route a week this year. That is a tall order, 52 new routes. That will about 650 bolt placements and 50 bolt gun charges.

Below is more information about, would you believe it, 4 brand new crags that I visited in under a two week period, for those climbers that have said "I have done everything I can on The Blanca" really need to come back and start again! I do not think Rockfax will reprint the current guide again for a few more years, so our website will the main information place for the new topos! Exciting times ahead.......

Mundo Perdido is a new crag above Sella, you will need to contact us for more details of the access, as its not past the climbing areas as you would imagine! The grade range so far is 6b to 7a, only 6 lines at the moment, but with the usual potential of hundreds more at every grade. The views are out of this world (hence the name, lost world!) and will feel very special as the approach will not be a walk in the park! lol

Rich Mayfield on the FA of Feist 6c+/7a a route Mike Robertson bolted last year
 but we ran out of time before we could climb it together.
Marijne having fun in the sun!
Below is a shot of us playing around on a highline, now that was a first and very scary....

Regaining the line after a fall not so easy and neither is standing up again.

Sector 45 Degrees is Gaz Parry's new crag and the scene for his first 8c+. This crag is further North, in the aea of Pego but still a great day out from staying with us in Finestrat. It has a few dozen routes at the moment which are mostly in the grade 7 and 8. You can read more about this here Gaz Parry . As soon as Gaz has sorted a topo we will sort out a link so you can see what the routes are.

What a great looking wall! 

Tom Bulger's first ascent of an 8a+ at sector 45.
Visit Tom's Blog

Pared Cereza. Good friends of ours Agustine and Ivan have been busy too with a new crag also near Sella. It has a dozen routes so far with a couple of projects in the low 8's, grade range from 4 to 8b ish. Again contact is for information if you want to visit.


Bover Dos, This new crag is not far from Boverdon near Gandia. Super steep climbing on truly massive holds. I am not sure who will be doing the topo for this new area, but I can certainly take people with me if they want to check it out.

Harriet Ridley pulling hard on perhaps the steepest 7b+ on the Costa Blanca at Bover Dos.
Brand New North facing Crag! No name at the moment!

I suppose for the majority of climbers these hard walls look great, but what I can hear alot of you saying is "what is there for me to climb?"

Well, for many years now we have been looking around for a crag that we can bolt with more easy lines, like Echo 1.5 I suppose! Echo is great for beginners, however the main problem is that when the sun shines even in the Winter it can get a tad warm, and when the summer comes its impossible really to climb there.

So the perfect crag would be North Facing and I suppose to please most people it would have a short walk in, and what about making it close to get to from The Orange House!

I am so happy to report that yes, it looks like we have found the perfect place and it was right under our nose all along, all we had to do was take a walk with the doggies and get closer to the rock to take a look.

Is the yellow stuff going to make for good climbing? We will soon see!

Sam climbing in fluffy gloves on weird features in the rock!
We think that these walls could have routes starting at 4s and right up to 7s. We are also talking about maybe more than 60 routes. Now that is alot of work to be done and we will need help. Anyone that would like to come and get involved please get in touch, we can provide bolts etc as the bolt fund still has funds.