We returned to Costa Blanca in March, with the pandemic in the news and in an atmosphere of uncertainty. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny, but not too hot for the climbing and scrambling that we had planned. Dan led his first outdoor sport route at Marin, north of Alicante, within a couple of hours of leaving the airport. Rob joined us on day 2 and Keith on day 3. If you’re new to the area, then Sella is the place to go to get acclimatised. There are hundreds of routes up on the mountain crags above Sella village with many classics. It was there that we met Jan from Denmark, who was looking for climbing partners. He stayed with us on and off for the week and climbed hard with Rob, setting the pace. On our third day together, with the temperatures rising, we headed first to Echo Valley, a set of high mountain crags, but the relentless sun saw us retreat inland to Guadalest where we knew we would find some shade. Here we climbed some of the hardest routes of the week, with Keith leading Jana a sustained and overhanging f6a. There were big discussions in The Orange House, where we stayed, about the relative merits of the stunning ridge lines in the area – whether they were all as exposed, exciting and sustained as each other. Wednesday, we chose the Bernia Ridge as our goal. It was a stunning day, with superb views in every direction, technical sections and tricky route-finding – a magical mountain day.
Our final day together was one we had all been looking forward to the most. The plan was to climb Magical Mystery Tour and Parlé at Sierra de Toix, down on the coast. It didn’t quite work out as expected. Jan joined us, and climbed MMT with Rob. Andrew, Keith and Dan climbed as a three. The long abseil in, sea level traverse and two pitches of steep climbing back to the top provide a memorable outing at the grade (f5). After that, with the heat building, only Andrew and Keith were up for the long abseil down into the Pirate’s Cave for the three intimidating pitches of Parlé (f6a+). This is Top 50 (as were MMT and The Bernia Ridge), but must rank as one of the best routes in Spain, or even the world … but maybe we’re biased. Rob and Dan have vowed to return in 2021 to climb Parlé. Watch out for this trip on the club website.
As Keith and Andrew flew out of Spain on Friday, 13th March, Spain began its steps towards lockdown. Rob had an epic journey back to Sweden via København, with Denmark closing its borders on the day he was due to leave Spain. Dan stayed and climbed on Saturday, leading his first f6a outdoors, before returning to a gradually enclosing UK. With all the restrictions that we’ve experienced over recent weeks, the memory of a wonderful week in the mountains of Spain has sustained us and we dream of going back.
