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Costa Daurada

Climbing Information

Grades

In general the grades are pretty friendly and consistently applied, in common with most other popular Spanish areas. Many of the routes in this guide are long sustained affairs so the grades are often a reflection of accumulated difficulty, rather than short bouldery or cruxy experiences. If you are fit then you may even find a few soft touches. Some of the older routes have recently been pushed up a notch by consensus having become a little polished or blatantly undergraded in the past.

The Climbing Season

The optimum times to visit are October through to May. The winter months can have periods of cold and wet weather but then it can also be wonderfully sunny and settled. The summer months, June through to the end of September, are very hot but, if you can confine your climbing activities to the morning and evening, you should get enough routes ticked although the area is short of shady crags. From November to the end of April, you will have to fly to Barcelona or Gerona

Grade Range

The Costa Daurada has plenty to offer climbers across the full grade range. Even the supposed 'harder crags', like Siurana, have a good set of low 6 pitches. For the 4 and 5 leader there is plenty to go at on crags like La Mussara, Vilanova de Prades, Mont-ral and Arboli.
As with many areas the best climbing is probably in the grade range 6b to 7c. For climbers who lead within these gardes, the quality of routes is probably outstanding. Those who want even harder stuff will most likely conern themselves with Siurana alone since there is little to go at in the really top grades on many of the crags.

In general the grades are pretty friendly and consistently applied, in common with most other popular Spanish areas. Many of the routes in this guide are long sustained affairs so the grades are often a reflection of accumulated difficulty, rather than short bouldery or cruxy experiences. If you are fit then you may even find a few soft touches. Some of the older routes have recently been pushed up a notch by consensus having become a little polished or blatantly undergraded in the past.

Grade conversion table.

Gear

For all of the sport routes in this guide 16 quickdraws and a 60m single rope are adequate. At El Falco a couple more quickdraws may be needed on some of the really long pitches if you intend to leave any in the lower-off chain. A number of sectors have routes that are considerably longer than 30m and consequently an intermediate lower-off will be necessary. Those people with 50m and 55m single ropes will need to exercise much caution in all areas as many pitches are over 27m in length. ALWAYS TIE A KNOT IN THE ROPE BEFORE LOWERING. If you are intending to tackle any of the routes which require gear a full rack of cams and nuts will be necessary.

Climbing Courses

Other Guidebooks

There are several more complete guidebooks now available to the area. All of these are available locally in the Tabac shops, the camp sites or online from www.onaclimb.es (site in Spanish).

Montserrat (2001) - Luis Alfonso and Xavier Buxo
A fine guidebook to this area which was briefly mentioned in the first edition of Costa Daurada. Good topos covering all of the routes.

Mussara and Mont-ral (2001) - Luis Alfonso and Xavier Buxo
All the routes in these two major areas. An excellent addition for any climber who has made several visits to these areas and wishes to explore them more. Covers all the routes at Isabel, the far left-hand end of the TV Crags and several smaller sectors near the Mussara refuge. It also has information on Maset de Paisan at Mont-ral.

Arbolí (2002) - Luis Alfonso and Xavier Buxo
All the routes at Arbolí and El Falco. More sectors at the Roadside Crags plus information on other local crags like El Dard.
There is also a small topo available to cover Vilanova de Prades.

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