UKC

I notice on UKC that you are supposed to register before climbing on the Penon de Ifach and will be fined if you don't. The form linked to on UKC appears to a) be horribly clunky, and b) refer to the walking path to the summit.

Has anyone used the system, ignored the system or had any issues accessing the climbs recently?

I notice there is no mention of any restrictions in the López guidebook.

Thanks for any feedback,

Chris

We were there last October. We registered on the day we walked up with the family. The form is a bit clunky as you say, but wasn’t that bad once you worked it out - you just need to remember to turn off your pop-up blocker temporarily otherwise it doesn’t work. 
However I don’t think we bothered on the day we actually climbed up, and didn’t see anyone doing any checks on either day - I suspect they focus on peak tourist season only.

Looking at the online instructions and form, I think the system is the same one that has been in place for at least the last 2 years, certainly the last 2 winters when we've been there.  It's NOT a permit to rock climb on the Penon, and no permit is needed for that.  It is simply a permit to access the "Ruta Roja", which is the tourist path to the summit (and I guess it is named due to the red paint markers on the route).

It was brought in to try to manage numbers, and is mainly enforced/checked/whatever during busy times, and certainly, the last 3 times we've gone up the Penon (in December/January), the office at the visitor centre has been closed and no sign of any officials.  BUT we do know 2 friends that were stopped in January last year at the office, told they needed a permit, and were guided through getting one on the spot.

It would apply to any climber coming down the path after doing a climb, so there are 2 obvious solutions to avoid the possibility of being stopped or fined - come down so late all the officials/rangers have gone home (we regularly see headtorches coming down, from our apartment balcony!), or, maybe preferable, just get a permit - yes, it's a bit clunky, but perfectly doable, and it's free.  The only problem with that is that the online system doesn't let you do that on the day - it only shows dates from the next day onwards.  It's a simple PDF form that can be shown on a phone, or printed off.

Cheers, Andy

When I was there maybe 18 months ago we did 3-4 days of routes on the Peñon. Considered this, and then figured that they probably wouldn't object to us walking down having climbed up.

As said above - no officials anywhere, and no stress...

As an aside - does anyone have any local knowledge of the state of the bolts on Nueva Dimension? What I could read up on they seemed somewhat dodgy, but hard for me to understand as my Spanish is not so good and the blog posts were quite outdated!

Whilst I don’t know the answer definitively (and it’s 30 years since I did New Dimensions), I can make an educated guess…

Most of the old bolts on routes on the South Face of the Penon have been replaced in recent years, and this work is ongoing.  For example, the bolts on Linea Magica were only replaced last year.

The first pitch of ND is now shared by the hardest route on the Penon, Guillem Sendra, and as the first ascentionist of that route is the re-equipper in chief, I’m confident he will have sorted that one.

The middle pitches of ND are common with Herbes Magiques which I did in 2017 (with the aforementioned r-e i c) and I don’t remember the occasional bolts being dodgy then.  I also did Pitch 4 of ND on that occasion, as we’d inadvertently missed it when we did ND (because we didn’t spot the bolts, and were climbing without any description).

So extrapolating all that, I think there is every chance that the 2 magnificent upper pitches (P8 & 9) will have been re-equipped, but I can’t say for certain.  But if it were me, I’d definitely take a punt.

Have fun!

Many thanks for the replies, some really helpful stuff in there,

Chris

We've noted this "requirement" every year in December/January for say 3 years and have completely ignored it and walked (me) and run (my young chums in their 60s!) up with no consequences.