Winter in Scotland and Spanish Hot Rock!

Winter has arrived in the Cairngorms and several winter routes have already been climbed, just as we leave for some hot rock climbing in Spain!

We are away until the end of November and will be taking winter skills bookings by email and text...

Orange Rock Climbing at Guadalest!

Exposed belay in cave

Our Local Crag in Spain

November rock climbing in Spain!

Full details of our annual Spanish 'Hot Rock' climbing trip on Fi's Blog here and lots of photos on the Talisman Mountaineering Facebook album here

Last climbing day in Spain

Good sunny weather and a good mountain day

With the return of dry sunny weather we headed back up to Puig Campana with Ian to stretch our legs, rock climb and enjoy the stunning vistas.
Many of the flowers including some giant heather were in full bloom due to the recent wet weather.

For full details and photos see Fi's blog here

The right choice!

The weather has been very wet and unsettled recently but it looked like we might get a dry day by heading a bit further south to Marin - we made the right choice!
As usual the easier polished single pitch routes seemed very hard for the grade compared to the harder grades and the multi-pitch...!
Thanks to Ian for most of the pictures - it's always good to take a photographer with you!

Rest day and villa flowers!

With a poor weather forecast for Sunday we enjoyed the local wine and a planned day at the villa... In the end the weather turned out good and sunny!

Alicante airport and Marin

As Ian was arriving at Alicante airport we combined the pick up with some multi and single pitch cragging at Marin. The rock was dry despite yesterdays rain though some of the limestone pockets were decidedly wet!! See http://fionachappell.blogspot.com/2011/11/marins.html

Cragging Thursday and showery Friday

We were in need of a rest so the weather played ball!

Espolon Central, Diedro Magicos and Via Julia Pillar revisited

Another cracking day on Puig Campana finally working out where ALL the Via Julia pitches and the variations go! The Rockfax topo for the Julia Pillar is very misleading and the abseil info text from Espolon Central  is wrong.
We had a nice surprise when we found out that one of the two climbers on Diedros Magicos opposite us was a friend from back home. It turned out to be Jonathan P and his mate Phil Children -  it's a really small world! See also http://fionachappell.blogspot.com/2011/11/via-julia-puig-campana.html

Another hot sunny day...

Photos of the Ponoch at the back of the villa and zoom in to look at some climbers on it's via ferata. A great sunny day and more forecast for tomorrow!

Hard day at the office!

Greyer and cooler today so some admin work and an hour or two at the local crags...
It looked busy on Echo 1 with some large groups on Via Ester and on Scorpion!

We were surprised how much more polished some of the sport routes in Echo Playa have become over the past year or maybe it's we've just become used to the newer areas and less polished multi-pitch trad routes!

Cragging and Spanish autumn light...

For full details see http://fionachappell.blogspot.com/

Mistaken Identity and Villa!

 Another hot day so a short local route called 'Mistaken Identity' before returning to the villa for an afternoon sangria and evening glass or two of wine, A rest day tomorrow...
The 'Mistaken Identity' topo is a bit confusing in the Rockfax guide. The trad route is also sportingly bolted and although a bit of a jungle bash in places it's much better than it looks. Take a small rack and watch out for the thorns as you climb through the palms onto the first belay ledge - the second pitch is much better!
More photos at http://fionachappell.blogspot.com/2011/11/echo-valley-mistaken-identity-and-villa.html