Nearing the end of our traverse of the Pyrenees, a fine day’s forecast coincided with us passing Riglos, and the opportunity to drop in was too good to ignore. The view of the iconic Mallos formations from the designated van parking spot at the Vulture viewing area – Centro de Interpretación de Aves ARCAZ – merited a beer (and crossed fingers that the weather really would clear).
Next morning, that part of the plan at least was on track – magnificent!
… though we hadn’t factored in the fact that it was the weekend. The place was rammed!
Our plan was to do one of the medium length routes on the Mallo Colorado, top right of the upper landscape and in close up below.
If you look closely at the centre right you might just make out a team starting up the classic Anorexia, 5b, which comes highly recommended as a good introduction to the conglomerate climbing hereabouts.
We made what turned out to be a good decision to do Victor Garcia, a 100m 4-pitch 6a on the right hand side of the buttress, and had the route to ourselves whereas there was a constant trail of people up Anorexia.
The first pitch is the crux, but was pretty straightforward (unlike some 6a horrorshows around here!)
Comfy belay and fine views.
Here’s Helen leading the final pitch.
We rapped the route (fine with a single 80m), avoiding the queue for the shared abseil off the back of the Mallo, and being VERY careful to avoid any rockfall on any following team (there wasn’t).
Fine views down to the van spot at the ARCAZ…
… and across to the massively leaning top half of La Visera:
You can make out the huge belay ledge formed by quite a big “potato” on Moskitos
… and the braille trail of chalk up Fiesta de los Biceps on the left (passing just left of the two “eyes” which are actually streaks of vulture guano).
More Fiesta photos in this post from my visit with Jake a few years ago:
Plenty of vultures for company, as always:
And fab views of the western end of the Pyrenees as we continued our traverse into Navarra, heading towards Pamplona.
RockAroundTheWorld 