UKC

Hi i wonder if anyone can help

looking for recomendations for a good climbing guide covering the Pyrenees, for short single pitch routes to the longer multipitch stuff

cheers
Andrew

In reply to Andrew_ing:

I'm not aware of anything which covers the whole Pyrenees and satisfies your requirements. You will probably need to look for guides covering individual smaller areas. Are you looking for trad, sport or both?

In reply to Mark Bull: think we are looking for a little bit of both maybe shorter bolted routes to the longer trad routes

cheers
Andrew

We got all our guides from here, hopefully will be some help.

http://cafma.free.fr/plan.htm

In reply to Andrew_ing:

Any particular area(s)?

In reply to Mark Bull: not really sure tbh, we will just be travelling through the Pyrenees on our way to Picos and where intrested in doing some climbing there

In reply to theandthem: that website looks great, thanks are there any areas you would recomend

In reply to Andrew_ing:

Guess that means the western end then? A quick search didn't turn up anything very useful: while the Ariege is very well served by the website already posted, that's unusual: other areas are the typical French chaos of topos which are only on sale locally (or more likely out of print). Hope someone else can be of more help, sorry!

In reply to Andrew_ing: Go to Riglos! Guidebook available from Barrabes in Huesca. http://www.barrabes.com/shop/books--maps/d-1614-d/guides/climbing__boulder.... Rodellar and Vadiello aren't far from there either, again, guidebook available from Barrabes.

There are some good local guidebooks, but unless you can read Spanish, then they're quite tricky to use, particularly the mountain routes.

In reply to Andrew_ing:
As fas as I know there is not a guide book covering the whole region that does what you want but ....

Rock Climbs In The Pyrenees by Derek Walker

http://www.cicerone.co.uk/product/detail.cfm/book/39/title/rock-climbs-in-t...

Its not brilliant but may be of some use.

The Telemark Pyrenees shop has some good guides as.

http://www.telemark-pyrenees.com/en/all/c-climbingguides/f/

Good luck.

Mnay Thanks all, should be good

In reply to Andrew_ing:

Would be a good next Rockfax publication - selected guide to the Pyrennes.

In reply to JayPee630:

Excellent idea!

In reply to Andrew_ing:

You haven't given much to go on, to be honest! Like for how long? What time of year? Multi-pitch trad or sport? Rough grades? etc etc. There's tons of amazing climbing in the pyrenees and pre-pyrenees and plenty of good guidebooks for it but without being more specific I wouldn't know where to start recommending.

Hmmm ---- I'm struggling with that. Struggling to find a true comparison.

Selected climbs of Scotland maybe!

we did a 3 month trip in the pyrenees and budgeted £250 for guidebooks.

This guide in English and German covers many different areas in the Pyrenees in both France and Spain so could be a good travelling through companion. Where it covers such a broad area it has just a few topos for areas that have a lot more climbing - so is probably a better bet for people travelling through than just in one place..

http://www.climb-europe.com/RockClimbingShop/Pyrenees-Rock-Climbing-Guidebo...

There's also more specific guides to sport climbing areas but in French or Spanish (escalades en ariege is good for french side & Xavier Buxo and Luis Alfonso do great guides to N. Spain)

In reply to ali k: Hi
we are only there for about a week at the end of april early may, on our way through from the Alps to Picos de europia, at the end of a a 5 week road trip through Europe just wanted to cram as much in as possible.

Just really looking at guide books to get an idea as we dont really no much about the area, and a good guide book seemed like a nice place to start.

Any Advice on classic routes and must see/Do's would be fantastic

cheers
Andy

In reply to Andrew_ing:

Ah I thought you'd be there much later. I was going to recommend the Aiguestortes / Cavallers area (mix of bouldering, sport and trad granite) but at that time of year it'll most likely be wet and there'll still be plenty of snow around high up. I'd have thought that will be the same pretty much wherever you go in the pyrenees proper at that time though. OK if you just want walking but the climbing will be more limited. I was there in May last year and the lower sport stuff around the dam was wet. We were waist deep in snow on the approach to a route up at Travessani and everyone else was ski touring!

How about the Ariege area? I haven't been there myself yet but I believe there's plenty of single and multi-pitch sport and trad. You could mail John Arran for more info.

Alternatively I'd stick to the pre-pyrenees area (on the Spanish side but lower lying and tons of amazing climbing - it covers the likes of Riglos, Vilanova de Meia, Terradets area, Rodellar etc). Not specifically what you asked for, in that it's mainly single pitch sport or multi-pitch bolted but you're guaranteed to get some amazing climbing done.

Get a copy of this (it covers all the amazing single pitch climbing around Lleida plus multi-pitch at Terradets, Vilanova de Meia and also some of the best routes in Cavallers)
http://www.needlesports.com/Catalogue/Books-Maps-DVDs/Foreign-Climbing-Guid...

Hope this helps
Ali

In reply to Andrew_ing:

No clibing guide will cover all the Pyrennes's range. Unfortunatly.
Look at this site :
http://www.remi-thivel.com/topos/topos.html

"Passage Pyreneens" (Eds "Pin a Crochet") guide book is fine for the west part of Pyrenees.

In reply to Andrew_ing: Reading all the previous posts I'm surprised that things don't seem to have improved since I trecked there ten years ago. Zig-zagging from Santander to friends in Toulouse, with car fill-ins, one day in Spain,next in France, the lack of maps, and those we had were sometimes pretty dodgy, gave us an interesting ten days of route finding. But stunning mouintains, only problems were the relative lack of through routes; the French and Spaniards have never been bosom buddies and most roads finish at the borders. I tried all the usual climbing book shops and was most unimpressed with what was available but maybe it's better now.
Oh, one other thing, the Spanish were much friendlier than the French and never tried to cheat us. The French were, well, French.

In reply to Andrew_ing: Here's a route worth checking out: http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=173706 Couple of other good multi-pitch sport routes there too.