Quite a lot has changed since our last visits to the trio of Bove… crags near Gandía (Bovedon, Bovedin and Bovedos) – we’d probably had only one or two previous sessions at each, and not for a while.
The first big change is there’s now a brand spanking new campsite within walking distance – very good value and good facilities, if still getting to grips with some of the finer points of campsite stewardship. Camping La Escalada.
The second change is that all the sectors are now very well covered in the Costa Blanca Lopez guide, whereas on our previous visit we’d been using a photo of a photocopy of a hand-scribbled topo (but it was more fun then!)
The final change is that you can no longer park at the top of a winding dirt track to access the crags, but instead need to use the specially constructed climbers’ parking El Bovedon Marchuquera Gandia
https://maps.app.goo.gl/QGRQNDEGCF5KCuESA
No big drama, but adds about 10 minutes to the walk. For the sake of another 5mins you may as well leave your van on the campsite – talking of which, camping at the parking spot is not allowed, despite the number of vans disregarding the fact (crazy given the access troubles up the road at Penya Roca!) Also worth knowing that the approach to Bovedos now seems to be via Bovedon as the direct path from the parking is restricted.
Anyway, having had a cool and breezy first week or so of our trip, it was no hardship to be gently roasted on the sheltered suntrap south and west facing walls for a couple of days on these fab crags. Hot and Bove’d but not Bothered. Something that hadn’t changed was that we were out with Keefe and Tansy, as on our last visit, and joined by Alison and Ian, and Ali and Phil. Quite a gathering!
We enjoyed a couple of the routes on either side of the Bovedon cave (while studiously avoiding the main event!)
Here’s Helen on Hera, 6a+, on the newly developed sector to the right of the cave.
Heading further along you get to the nicely marked junction and head uphill for Bovedin…
You can just about make out Ali at the top of the striking initial arete of the sector in the pic below:
… and a view over to the west facing righthand end of the crag.
Here’s Keefe in action on one of the steeper routes on the LHS of Bovedin…
… and a couple of shots of Phil:
In between these last routes, I managed to cover the ground on Urano, a superb 7a, but couldn’t quite pull off Ali’s beta for the crux: “just levitate” so had to have a sit and a head scratch instead.
Further right, the angle eases a little (but not a lot!) – here’s Helen on La Raspa (right) and Alison on Susto (left), both 6a
… and Alison powering her way up the long and sustained Jovenes a los 70, 6b.
… and Helen on Rita, 6a.
At the far right hand end of the crag I can thoroughly NOT recommend Samauri, 7a, an unpleasant one-move wonder. On the other hand, Tokomotxo, 7a, and People from Alaska, 6b+, are both outstanding! They share a common first half up a flat grey tufa, before splitting for contrasting finishes. Confusingly the guidebook and TheCrag both have these transposed, with only a reference to UKC helping to untangle the mystery (I did them both to cover all options!)
For the best part of the following week we tore ourselves away from the walk-from-van convenience of the Boves to explore Pinet (see previous post)
and it was looking like we’d missed our chance when the weather threatened to break in a major way (20mm of rain every day for almost a week!) However, we woke to a cloudy but dry morning, with a tempting chink of blue, and Helen suggested a sprint up to the crag for a YECTOYD before the monsoon hit.
We managed Murcielargo, 6a+, on Bovedon and Yin Yan, V+, on Bovedin in the dry…
… and with the forecasted rain rolling in…
… we took the decision to bag the excellent Por Gusto, 6a, in the full knowledge it would cost us a drenching on the walk down…
… which was well worth it!
RockAroundTheWorld 