Olvena and Homeward Bound

Olvena is just north of Huesca, in Arragon, on the southern fringes of the Pyrenees. It’s comfortably within a day’s striking distance of Bilbao (our ferry departure point on the way home) and gets surprisingly decent weather, so makes for a good staging post.

We’d visited a couple of times previously, so were in the market for some unexplored crags, as well as revisiting some old favourites.

Benabarre

This is a pretty village with a couple of contrasting climbing sectors. Neither very extensive, but both easily accessed and sunny.

Parking just outside town, you’re hard pressed to spot Sector Molino, until you peer over the edge and realise it’s directly beneath you.

Here’s a topo…

Follow the steep steps down to the old mill and Roman Bridge (less than 5mins down but more of a haul out!)

This is a steep bit of rock, and it’s obviously well-used as the rock is polished to a high sheen. There’s a token V+, Nuit de Brujas, at the far left hand end, and you could easily add an extra letter to the grade. Good fun climbing though, if you can ignore the polish (and your ego!) Just to its right, you could apply the same grade inflation to La Niña Psikoneurótika, 6a+, and TBH my arms and my ego were feeling a bit battered. This was a bit of problem, as you’re in to 6b/+ after that and they didn’t look any slabbier. In for a penny, I decided to hop on Los Rokipankis, 6c (I’d rather fail on a 6c than a 6b!) and was somewhat startled to get to the top! Cracking route!

There’s a rope hanging down it in the shot below so you can gauge the angle of dangle.

I went from “runaway with your tail between your legs” to “quit whilst you’re ahead” in the space of one route, and in any event it was getting a bit toasty.

The day was still young, so we popped over the other side of town to check out Sector Boca la Roca. This takes a bit of finding on the Internet so here’s a topo…

… and here are the crag coordinates – 42.113065° N 00.489318° E – Parking is about 10m away on a steep gravel track.

This track (“pista”) isn’t visible on the topo, but runs between two chunks of rock. The left hand chunk contains four routes, juggy if a bit stumpy…

Helen did the left hand two: Boca Junior V-, and Hotel Delgado V, and pronounced them “much better than they look”. The other two look like massive sandbags!

Ligüerre de Cinca – Crestas del Dragon

Heading north towards Ainsa and the French border, the Cinca valley offers some eye-catching rock architecture above a couple of attractive reservoirs (especially attractive at the moment, full to the brim and with melt waters tinting them a vivid emerald green.) The tiny hamlet of Ligüerre de Cinca is seemingly more of a wedding venue than a village…

… but it’s an absolutely stunning one!

There’s not as much climbing as there is rock, and the Crestas del Dragon (Dragon’s Back) is tucked out of sight beneath the main road (accessible in 10mins across a field from a large parking area, or shorter but steeper from limited parking on a hairpin directly above).

Another topo that’s hard to pin down, so here goes (though we found a different source with grades a + more generous, which felt fair)

Kiko, 6a, is really good, and not as crumbly as it looks. Fernando El Católico 6b+/c is also recommended (the routes either side get 6b+ in the alternative topo). EI Ojo Del Dragón V+/6a, O Diedré V/V+, and La Primera V+/6a are also worthwhile. Here’s O Diedré…

Ligüerre de Cinca – Corona

There’s loads more rock…

… but the most developed Sector Corona looks fairly unassuming from below.

On closer inspection there are a bunch of long lines on steep slabs in the V to 7a range

Here’s Helen on El Simil del Agujero, 6a

Further right, the angle steepens but the holds (and bolting) improve, and I found a corner line with a bunch of shiny bolts to be much more my cup of tea (not sure if it was El Hombre de Nearfrontal or NoName IV, but 6c either way)

Olvena – Sector Garrapotillos

The spectacular Esera gorge slices its way through the rocky hillside, leaving another impressive set of potential crags, with only a fraction of the development potential exploited to date. Sector Garrapotillos could hardly be more roadside…

… and had been absolutely rammed when we’d passed the previous Sunday. A chilly Maundy Thursday had thinned out the crowds, and we shivered in double duvets and beanies, determined to bag a YECTOYD to mark the final day of our trip.

We harked back to a previous visit with Jim when we’d squabbled over the limited shade from a stumpy bush to escape the blazing sun.

Antonio Iglesias (marked AI on the rock) directly off the tarmac, must have been an absolutely belting 6a in its pre-polish pomp. Still a fine route today, a good 30m, but worth having a grade in hand. Reassuringly (especially in light of the recent tragedy in Kalymnos) much of the older generation of dodgy hardware has been replaced in a recent re-bolting spree (though beware that especially on the easier routes there are still some ancient relics worth avoiding).

Further up the hill on Sector Alto, I’d previously earmarked Cristina, 6b+, as an absolute must-do-again when making a return visit. Sadly, ten years of polish (on the rock) and decrepitude (mine!) combined with the can’t-feel-your-fingers chill, served as another reminder of the “never go back” wisdom.

Just to the right, the steeper orange corner of Gran Vos, 6c, proved to be much more up my street, and saved the day.

Here’s a pic of a local climber on Despues de un Alto, 6b, with Cristina up the shallow groove just right, and Gran Vos up the orange corner beyond that.

Alpargateros

Frozen stiff by now, but with plenty of time to play with, we thought we’d do a bit of reconnaissance for a future trip. Alpargateros sounded worth a look, promising a dozen or so routes in the 5s and 6s in a pretty, remote spot. The first challenge is to battle your way through the village, a maze of narrow streets, some one-way, and the odd cul-de-sac. We ended up skirting to the south – not sure if it was the best route but it worked.

Keep heading for the Santuario de la Carrodilla and park in a clearing a hundred metres up this track, with the crag in sight (which would be a possible van spot).

Still chilly, but with a tempting band of clear sky edging in our direction, we decided to take a closer look. The path to the crag is very well-cairned

You arrive at the left hand end of the crag and we bumped into a local couple (as surprised as we were to have company). They pointed us at Ursula, V+ (you can just about make out some painted route names) with a warning that it was really hard for the grade. They weren’t wrong, but the climbing was really good.

By now the promised sun had arrived (albeit the crag was going into the shade) and it seemed rude not to do another route. Plaça de la Triste Figura was 6a+, but happily no harder than Ursula and better bolted.