Puig Campana

Tenko - 17/Oct/11

Climbed the Puig Campana 25th March 06. Used the Rockfax guide - spot on. Old Guide (1997) difficult to follow. We reccied the parking and walk in the day before, which is well worth doing to get a good start. Three of us climbed on two 10mm ropes, did the normal route in 6 hours without problem of time keeping or rushing, but we did start the walk in from the car at dawn (sunrise)at 5:45 am, started the climb itself at 7 am, finished around 1 pm. We did not protect the first main scramble which probably saves an hour+, no difficult moves if you stick to the ridge top, some tat in place. Route finding is a bit tricky at the start, at the top of the first main scramble we walked rightwards along broken ledges with bushes as far as we could go easily. First pitch was from a sling belayed around a large bush at the end of a wide broken ledge and climbed upwards through a sapling (tug o war) trending rightwards towards the main arete. From the top there is a Long walk off, easy to follow, some exposure and horrible scree slope at finish (need good boots0. Got back to bottom at around 3 pm. Weather was 25 C, like a hot english summers day. We could have fitted in the direct start, would have added another 1.5 hours I guess, and made the route more interesting from the off - I would recommend this if you are there at dawn. About 6 other climbers - 2 parties - on the route, some difficulty when passing, I could envisage queues building up behind the slowest climbers. we found Trad protection with nuts 3 to 9 and medium to large cams mainly, belay points are mainly double bolted, so easy to protect on belay. This was a really excellent day out with consistent grades, around 4 to 4+ (Severe 4a on the whole) for most pitches, highly recommended if you are ok leading V Diff to hard severe max. Rock has lots of solution pockets and there are holds everywhere,never found a pitch where there was a scarcity, something always turned up, even on the Z crack pitch there are jugs to be found. We stayed in a dead cheap hotel in Benidorm old town, but beware there are very narrow streets stuffed with cars, and one way systems, it is not easy to find parking spaces, although there are underground car parks at 10 euros per day, so if you stay there ensure the Hotel has a reserved space for you, or nearby parking. Plenty of places to eat though from pizza to curry to trad sea food, and great walking down the sea front & harbour in the evening. We also climbed at sella and Toix, I found Toix much more interesting with more climbing at my grades 4 to 5 (severe to HVS)in a small and accesible area.
Ian Hogg - 09/Apr/06

Off limits-Big fire on 080606-100 hectares on the westen face and 40 buildings evacuated. See www.euroweeklynews-the local newspaper
David Mills - 10/Mar/06