Spain with non climbing family

I am looking for experiences/ advice others have about family climbing trips to Spain. I am planning on taking a trip there with my wife and two kids (age 3 and 7 at the time of the trip) during October, November, and half of December this year.

My wife is not a climber but has studied in Galicia and spent time in Mallorca. Ideally we want to rent a house in a smaller town near climbing and where we could try to get to know local people, culture, etc., where I can find climbing partners regularly. We are considering Mallorca, the area around Lleida (Llerida), maybe el Chorro for the end of the trip. We are not sure about staying in one place the whole time or splitting time between two or three locations. I would be interested to here other people's ideas about where to go specifically, what kind of housing people would suggest, and any other comments or ideas.

I red point 13-, so I would like to be near areas that offer climbs of that grade (I realize that this is really pretty much all of Spain).

I recomend renting an apartment in Barcelona. There is plenty of stuff for the family to do, a great culture and world clases climbing at the near by Montserat.

Alternitavly you could just teach you family to climb!

If you can manage splitting time it would be great to do Mallorca for October then move to Barcelona for the rest. The island is a magical place and you'd find plenty of partners in October.

We visited Spain last year at the end of March. We visited Calpe, which has a bunch of villas nearby that you can rent, and at least 15 different climbing areas of all abilities. Rent was dirt cheap, probably more so now with the strong dollar.

We really enjoyed the limestone and impressive position over the Mediterranean, and it wasn't too hot at that time of year. I'm guessing you'd want to be further south by December, but March had perfectly warm days.

I can ask my friends from Madrid if they would be interested in connecting with you. They climb a lot with their two children, and I know they go down to Mallorca from time to time. PM me.

cheers.
-chris

What kind of vibe are you looking for as far as where you stay? Soller on Mallorca is just unbelievably charming, but if you're looking for world class culture and shopping you'll find Mallorca pretty sleepy. Soller isn't the prime location for a climber, but it made me super psyched to feel like the non climbers were well set up and was happy to do the extra driving that resulted from being there. Plenty of nice hiking and walking out of Soller also. I don't know what the weather will be like in Mallorca then, we were there in April and it was mostly perfect climbing weather.

We did vrbo or something similar and have done similar things elsewhere and always been glad we did. Usually a lot more comfortable for the same or less money as a hotel, especially with kids where separate rooms are so handy. I'd recommend our specific house except we had a big group and the place slept 10 or something, a bit overkill for you!

Hard to miss in Spain though, awesome! I've heard some nice things about Costa Verde since you mentioned Galicia, but I think weather could be iffy then...

Have fun!
David

Optimistic wrote:What kind of vibe are you looking for as far as where you stay? Soller on Mallorca is just unbelievably charming, but if you're looking for world class culture and shopping you'll find Mallorca pretty sleepy. Soller isn't the prime location for a climber, but it made me super psyched to feel like the non climbers were well set up and was happy to do the extra driving that resulted from being there. Plenty of nice hiking and walking out of Soller also. I don't know what the weather will be like in Mallorca then, we were there in April and it was mostly perfect climbing weather. We did vrbo or something similar and have done similar things elsewhere and always been glad we did. Usually a lot more comfortable for the same or less money as a hotel, especially with kids where separate rooms are so handy. I'd recommend our specific house except we had a big group and the place slept 10 or something, a bit overkill for you! Hard to miss in Spain though, awesome! I've heard some nice things about Costa Verde since you mentioned Galicia, but I think weather could be iffy then... Have fun! David

I agree completely, Soller is an amazing place.

Thanks for the replies. My wife actually spent some time in Soller and she has mentioned how nice it was. We are thinking about there verses Porto Colom or Porto Cristo as they are closer to more of the psicobloc stuff and I feel like I could just solo easier routes if partners became an issue. I don't know about the idea of finding climbing partners in Soller, which makes me apprehensive about being there. I really want to check out Fraguel, and it looks like Soller is really close to that area. Does anyone have any experience with meeting locals to climb with around the Soller area or hooking up with other travelling climbers? Thanks again.

Hi Tom,

I´m Jose Ortega, from Madrid. As many people said here, Mallorca is a nice place to stay and climb. Wonderful weather, but mostly in fall, during winter its cold. One of the atractives is to climb near the coast in cliffs with the sea at the base. Mallorca is also a top ten of psicobloc, but you can try only in october.

About other places, it depends of your choice:

-trad multipitch climbing: Naranjo de Bulnes (limestone, Asturias in the N), Ordesa and Riglos (limestone, conglomerate...amazing!Pyrenees) are one of the best until end of october, very long routes between 500 and 3000 ft. After fall season, best to climb in the south-SE as Chris (Percious)said: Peñón de Ifach, Ponoch and Puig Campana (limestone, Calpe area)...all of these places offers routes with different ratings, from 5.9 to 5.13 and more than 15 pitches. Other reccomendation for trad climbing is around Lerida, Terradets, Montrebei, Villanova (limestone)...routes about 1500 ft. Also Monserrat in Conglomerates.

-sport climbing: around the whole Spain. I reccomend you to check the phone app:
desnivel.com/escalada-roca/…

Also available in a guidebook (without topo, only location ratings percentage and other facilities):
libreriadesnivel.com/libros…

Another useful webpage with all information contained in the mobil app and guidebook is:
zonasdeescalada.com/

As you said you red point 13, I reccomend you to visit Lleida (Siurana, Margalef...there is a new guidebook in english). It is true than in spain many places has 13´s (El Chorro, Cueva de Archidona, many crags around Malaga in the South, Rodellar in the North), so probably the best is to visit the most famous or just visit the nearest to Mallorca.

If you miss Colorado granite climbing, in central Spain we have excellent crags of friction (one of the world top ten is La Pedriza, near my home).

About family. I have two kids and we usually visit many places friendly for kids. Many of them are in Calpe area (Costa Blanca), one of the more famous is Sella, specially for you the Wild Side sector full of 13´s, but exist tons of crags with a good basement for family. My reccomendation is Mallorca again, with climbing and kids enjoying in the beach.

Check for sport climbing the British guidebooks of Rock& fax (Mallorca, El Chorro and Costa Blanca).

If you have doubts do not hesitate to contact me. I will be in Colorado doing research in RMNP with CSU (Fort Collins) from May to October.

Cheers and sorry for mistakes in english writting

Jose

Tom Rangitsch wrote:Thanks for the replies. My wife actually spent some time in Soller and she has mentioned how nice it was. We are thinking about there verses Porto Colom or Porto Cristo as they are closer to more of the psicobloc stuff and I feel like I could just solo easier routes if partners became an issue. I don't know about the idea of finding climbing partners in Soller, which makes me apprehensive about being there. I really want to check out Fraguel, and it looks like Soller is really close to that area. Does anyone have any experience with meeting locals to climb with around the Soller area or hooking up with other travelling climbers? Thanks again.

I struck up conversations with a few folks at the crags (mostly non-Spaniards were who we saw) but I never saw a place where there was a sort of climbing scene in any of the towns. Definitely not Soller. Personally I'd use online (here plus Ukclimbing) for that, the climbing is very spread out and most of it quite rural.

Jose captures it well: Spain is just awesome...seemed sometimes to us like a USA worth of climbing (or more?) , but without all the intervening flat parts in between.