Location: El Chorro, Spain
Date: 20. – 26. May 2017
Trip Captains and authors: Volker Mayer, Thomas Dreßler
The destination of the 2017 climbing trip was El Chorro in Spain. Equipped with our personal stuff and two full bags of club gear we took the early flight from Frankfurt International to Malaga. We spend some time discovering the city and eating our first Spanish meal before we picked up the rental cars. Outside the busy city, a beautiful country road took us El Chorro. We stayed at a small house close to the road to have a short way to most of the various climbing spots in the area. The rest of the day, we spend to get to know each other. We had to organize the shopping, the cooking as well as the climbing gear.
The place was very peaceful and one could have spent the whole week relaxing in the sun, but that was not why we came. We purchased a Topo from the local climbing community to support them in taking care of the bolting. It includes about 60 spots in the area and lead us to amazing routes. Monday, our first climbing day, was beautiful. We drove to a close climbing spot to get two know the grading, the bolting and the rock. We approved everything and soon fell in love with this climbing region. However, in the course of the week we noticed that the kind of rock differs a lot here.
Thanks to the motivated and skilful trip participants in the group, everybody was able to climb as much as we wanted. The highlights were the four-pitch on Tuesday and eventually the 6b+ and 6c routes on Thursday. The clubs fifty-metre half ropes allowed as a fast and easy ascend and descend in the multi-pitch routes. This was an import fact, due to increasing wind speeds. On Wednesday, we voted for a break and visited “Camino Del Ray”. An easy but worthwhile hike through a canyon. Perfect to rest one’s forearms.
Thanks a lot to all participants! See you next time!