In reply to Phill Mitch:
I was in Riglos in October and we stayed at the Refuge - thoroughly recommended with very comfortable accommodation and great food. You can book on line at
http://www.refugioderiglos.es/en/
I've just finished writing this trip up as a part of an article on "Big Routes" for the Rucksack Club Journal so here's a brief Trip Report extracted from there to help you psyche for your visit:
The opportunity for a ten-day trip with Bill in October presented itself
and I knew just the source for inspiration. Arnaud Petit, author of Parois
de Légende - Les plus belles escalades d’Europe, is French. If you hadn’t
guessed from his name (or known from when he was world climbing
champion in 1996), one look at the contents list of his book is a give-away.
Just eight of the 34 chapters concern routes outside France, and of these
only two are in Spain (and don’t include the Peñon d’Ifach or El Ponoch).
To beat off that stiff competition and Monsieur Petit’s love of his mother
country these Spanish inclusions must be pretty special — Bill and I
decided to go and see for ourselves.
We headed for Riglos, a small mountain village about an hour south of
the Pyrénées, more or less in the middle of the neck of the Iberian
Peninsula. This is a climbers’ village — the sign on entering says it all:
‘Bienvenedo a Riglos — Escala con seguridad’ with a picture of a vulture to
emphasise the consequences of ignoring the advice. The spacious modern
refuge is situated on the main street, immediately below the Mallos de
Riglos — a series of 300m conglomerate towers or ‘cathédrales de
poudingue’ to use the French vernacular from P de L — literally ‘pudding’.
This hardly does justice to the most extraordinary rock structure that I’ve
come across anywhere — culminating in the giant potato-shaped rocks
(think rugby ball size) that encrust the top of La Visera.
Our warm-up introduction to ‘le poudingue’ was Murciana ou Alberto
Rabada, a 290m 6c+ on El Pison, the biggest of the Mallos. Bill and I were
completely blown away by the quality of the climbing on this crazy rock.
Any initial concern about testing the attachment of the various lumps was
soon discarded — there’s no way you could hang on long enough. These
routes are to be climbed with confidence or not at all. We later turned our
attention to the cigar-shaped spire of El Puro on the side of El Pison to
complete Chapter 34 of P de L.
That left Chapter 33: La Visera — the aptly named ‘Visor’ whose top
100m overhang at an angle of about 20 degrees the wrong side of vertical.
Three routes make up the chapter: Moskitos the original (from 1976) and
most classic at 6b+; Zulu Demente has the hardest single pitch at 7a+ but
is otherwise fairly amenable; and, last but not least, La Fiesta de los
Biceps. As the name suggests, this is a full-on jug-fest of sustained and
unrelenting brutality on the arms with barely a move below 6b+ and a
couple of 7a pitches thrown in for good measure. Being unredeemed
‘tickers’ we had to do all three and they are all superb. Los Biceps is oft
touted as ‘The Best Route in The World’ and whilst I think you’d have to
add ‘...of its type’ to that superlative, you’d be hard-pressed to argue.
Looking up from the refuge your eye is drawn to the white snail-trail of
chalk which weaves its way up this improbable ground. Looking down from
near the top of the visor headwall you realise that it’s more like someone
has spilled icing sugar down the side of a particularly sloppily sliced
Christmas pudding, frosting the currents, sultanas and almonds that break
the surface and add enough texture to climb on. Some of these ‘potatoes’
are the size of TV sets!
If you want more info then drop me an email. Have a great trip (and watch out for the vultures!)
Cheers Dom
