UKC

Got the chance to go away late November for 3 days of climbing and looking for some ideas.

Spain is an obvious, but Alicante does not fit with airports near us in the Uk. Montserrat is a an option but looking for advice on the weather.

Or can anyone suggest anywhere else with a relatively short flight and fairly quick access to some good climbing trad or sport.

Grade wise, to encompass abilities of both climbers from the low 5s up to the low 7s.

Thankyou.

In reply to Kaya:

Not sure if it's a god idea or not (until next Sunday) but I'm doing a 3 day trip to El chorro. When we looked into it there were very very few good options for a long weekend. We're flying 6:30 out from Manc and back again Sunday at 20:30. So hopefully 2.5 proper days climbing.

Be interested to know what better options there are.

Still don't think you can beat Oman for a late November trip. Flew overnight there and back a few years ago and managed a Wheeler Ratio of 2.0, which is pretty amazing for the distance travelled.

In reply to TheGeneralist:

Thanks Generalist, would be really interested to hear how it goes.

In reply to TheGeneralist:
"Still don't think you can beat Oman for a late November trip" same thought popped into my head as well. By similar reasoning, you could pull off a Wadi Rum trip - in either case you're not getting much sleep on night 0 & night 3 but the upside of Jordan is that someone else is doing the driving for you (taxi vs. a rental in Oman)....& if you can fly into Aqaba vs. Amman, well then sky is the limit.

In reply to Kaya:

I guess it depends on what routes your local airports serves. I did a 4 day trip to Cascais in Portugal. Flew out of Heathrow at 08:15 and still got 7 routes in the same day.

In reply to Kaya:


On average, there is less rain and fewer rainy days in November than in October. I can't remember/find the source, but when I investigated it was something like 6 rainy days in October, 4 in November. So on average, you should be OK. We were there for 5 days in October and had 5 days of sunshine, which of course proves nothing other than that we were lucky

We hired a car (which are dirt cheap), but the only reason for that was to give some flexibility if it rained - it's quicker to go by train once you've factored in the time taken to collect a hire car.

In reply to Kaya:

Gozo

In reply to Simon Caldwell:

Yr.no has good weather stats on anywhere you might want to go, which gives an idea of how rainy somewhere usually is.

If you're flying to Barcelona, all the car hire places are very quick apart from Goldcar. Most of the offices are in the airport and will sort you out very quickly, especially if you arrive at night. Goldcar is offsite and you need to take a shuttlebus, their office is slow and they sting you for extra charges at the end - avoid if you want a quick hassle free trip.

Catalunya good, if you can find the flights. South of France also, fly to Marseille and Buoux, St Victoire, Toulon, etc all within 1 - 2 hours drive.

In reply to Kaya:

Abella de la Conca for your grade range? Abella de la Conca#maps

I've climbed nearby at Terradets and Vilanova de Meia in November and it was nice in the sun.

Am doing a similar thing in January - flying to Barcelona, but no accommodation booked and will decide last minute how far we have to drive!

In reply to Kaya:

Barcelona & Margalef
Margalef has the advantage that you can always climb in the shade - yes, this can be appreciable even in November

In reply to seankenny:


We used Inter Rent and they were painfully slow. Only partly because I've got an old (pre-photo) driving licence, and they decided they had to phone for approval (which I've never had before).