13 Pitches of Brilliant but Boiling Climbing
Spain, September 2022
by Louis Ayres Dixon
In September 2022 a motley contingent from Chelmsford Mountaineering Club found ourselves on the sunny coast of Costa Blanca. The trip had arisen from multiple chats about sunny climbing, ironically while we hid in the pub from the rain and cold in the UK (no surprises – it was North Wales!).
Once we touched down in Alicante, we picked up overweight luggage laden with quickdraws, loaded up the rental cars and headed for the valleys. We first dropped our bags at the hostel we had rented for the week, The Orange House in Finestrat. I honestly could not recommend this place enough, amazing facilities and even more amazing views!
The pool of the hostel almost perfectly pointed at a towering slab of rock rising from the rear of the town. The rock in question was the Puig Campana standing at 1406m and sporting multiple pitches of excellent limestone. Obviously, a climber’s book of choice round the pool would be the Rockfax guide to Costa Blanca. I quickly glanced over the routes on this face and found the Espolón Central, a sustained 13 pitch route given the grade 4C. We had many chats and 2 teams decided we would give it a crack.
The Tuesday morning, we woke up early and headed off. We decided to dump the cars in a layby just outside the main town of Finestrat. The approach to the base of the route is a straightforward walk over the scree slope aiming for the centre of the south face. The route starts to the left of a weird-shaped oval recess in the face almost resembling an egg. Here someone has kindly painted on the rock the names of the three main routes on the face.
John and I had decided we were going to take a light rack with us as the feedback on the route suggested there was an abundance of fixed gear in place with mostly bolted belays, so we decided to carry a full set of wires and a half rack of cams. The first change if I were to climb it again would be to take one long rope instead of two 60m half-ropes. The halfropes created slightly longer change-overs at the belays especially when there were 13 of them, although we did have the option for a faster retreat if we needed to bale for any reason. It is important to mention that this route is all about timing as the approach is one hour, the climbing itself took us eight hours and then the descent took two hours, so overall we were aiming for a 12 hour day. Advice is to pack accordingly as there was chat of frequent needs for rescue of climbers misjudging their timings and route finding and therefore getting benighted.
In terms of the actual climbing, it is 13 pitches of genuinely easy 4c climbing with many pitches sporting some breathtaking positions. We found that all of the pitches were well within our limits. I would say if you are consistently leading trad VS or sport 5C you would have no trouble on this route, the one thing we found the hardest was going pitch after pitch in the sun! So back to what I said, pack accordingly and take plenty of water, and if the guidebook says the belay is one place but you get there and there is a suitable alternative in the shade TAKE IT!
In terms of route finding everything is pretty clear as there is more than enough in situ gear across the route. We found from around pitch 8 after the large glass ledge traverse, the route finding wasn’t as easy but as the guidebook states if you stick to the ridge you will get to where you’re heading, but the breakdown of pitches is left to your own judgement.
Overall, this is an amazing route which is well-equipped and accessible for anyone heading to Costa Blanca, the climbing is picturesque and breath taking. I fully support the 3 stars Rockfax gives it and it should be on anyone’s list to tick off when making a trip to this region.
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