Blagaj is a town just south of Mostar in Herzegovina, most famous for the spring of the Buna river which emerges from a cave at the foot of some major cliffs. This is the location for a historical Tekija (Dervish monastery), built around 1520, and the area also features a well-preserved hilltop fort. Plenty to attract tourists, but there’s been an up tick in visitors in the past decade since the first climbing routes were established in 2014. There are now around 250 routes, making this the biggest sport climbing area in BiH.

There’s a good infrastructure of campsites and the healthy competition between these, and the hospitable local culture, makes for a very warm welcome. Autocamp Blagaj https://maps.app.goo.gl/oLcamrV7Jskmeuhx8 comes very highly recommend – owner Alan makes you feel very at home. You’d guess the 4.9* rating on Google Maps from over a thousand reviews has been earned without the help of AI Bots. The swing set on our plot sealed the deal!

The access for much of the climbing is from the Eco Centre, at the foot of the Vulin Potok canyon. This is a climber-run initiative which also features gear hire and guiding for the via ferrata through the canyon, and a fairly basic campsite. We traded comfort (and the swing!) for the convenience of walk-from-your-van climbing access. Day parking costs about a quid.

Paths are well marked and there are a bunch of sectors (A to F) on the south facing flank of the ridge and another bunch (G to N) in the canyon itself, with the upper ones accessed by a via ferrata.

We had a day on sectors A and B which was a pretty eye-opening intro to the local grading. Don’t bother packing your ego! Too proud to warm up on a 5, I got my arse kicked on a 6a+ instead – Nob (the route name, though could have been a verdict on the climber). Ahdnama, also 6a+, resulted in a similar outcome and Kondut on Sector B up an eye-catching pair of tufas made it 3 out of 3. What was Einstein’s quote about doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome? They all felt more like 6c than 6a+.

Helen, meanwhile, was pursuing a more sensible strategy, ticking off Aja, 4c, Valentinova and Posjekotina (both 5b). We met somewhere in the middle, finishing up with Mujine Koze, another 5b.

Here’s a shot of sector A from the approach path, with a few more teams clocking on for the late shift as we were leaving.

… and a rusty relic which looked a bit reminiscent of some of the artefacts to be found on Range West!

Sector Rebro is situated on top of the long limestone ridge. You can access it from the Eco Centre, but there’s a shorter approach from the parking for the fortress:

We took the zigzag path up to have a shufty at the fortress…

Great views down to the town, and beyond to Mostar in the far distance.

Walking along the ridge, the striking fin of rock of sector Rebro comes into view.

The southern face gets sun most of the day, and while we’d been scorching the previous day, a gusting wind was keeping things quite fresh.

There are some super-thin slab routes, but three more obvious lines stand out: the sinuously snaking crack on the right: Banja Luka, 5+ (stiff – would be a 3* E1/2 in Cheedale); the corner crack in the middle: Predbradjanzki, 6a+; and the steeper crack up the orange wall: Blagjaski Sup 6a (excellent – Pembroke E1/2);

Here’s me on the former…

… and a visiting Pole on the latter:

… and me around the same spot.

There’s a quirky hut…

… which is immaculately kept and free to use – a testament to the local climbing community.

… with a pretty decent outlook.

The shady side might be worth a return visit on a hot day.

Talking of which, another toasty one saw us heading along to the far end of the south facing wall to sample one of the multi-pitch routes on Sector F. It’s a bit of a schlep, but you do get to check out the rest of the sectors on the way, the pick of which (if you are climbing 6b to 7b) looks to be the tufa-strewn Sector D

Our chosen objective, Dulimanov sokak, turned out to be a fun and reasonably graded trip (we’d set out with modest aspirations, having been properly poned on our first day). 100m of climbing in 3 pitches, all 5ish (different topos had different grades). You can just about rap the route with a 60 but the final rap to the ground is a bit of a stretch and you’ll need to scramble down a few metres. Tie a knot and be wary, or take an 80 to be sure.

You can just about make out the line, just left of opening of the “Green Cave” in the middle of the modest-looking wall in the centre of the shot above (which is over 100m tall) in the pic below. That gives you some idea of the scale of the orange wall, which must be at least 300m. This is the cliff from which the river emerges, and the location of the Tekija /  monestary. Sadly there’s no climbing, presumably for that reason.

Rather than retrace our steps we took the zigzag scree path down to the river, and past the monestary…

Pretty spot.

We left Blagaj after a week (see next post on our exploration of the crags around Mostar from the same base), and might be back on the return loop, but I can’t leave this post without another shout out for Autocamp Blagaj: €15 a night is a pretty fair price (you could pay three times that in Austria for a tenth of the welcome) but the value in the restaurant is unbelievable. Our host insists on offering a welcome drink to all new arrivals, followed by a free top-up and then sends you away with a complementary bottle of wine. Dinner of excellent grilled fish, a salad and delicious apple cake to finish, plus four glasses of wine and yet another complementary bottle to take away came to £20 between us. Now that’s a bargain.