Albahida (Gubia Normal) Route Grade Votings
Total votes cast 21
Adjacent Routes The most popular long route on the island is the spire-like ridge of Albahida. Climbing it is a full day's outing for most teams, including the long descent. The line of the route is a bit vague since it wanders around the rib, however most of the stances have fixed gear, if in doubt, just follow the easiest line. USER COMMENTS
Climb the first 5 pitches then ab back down! Don't ab to far because the rope really does make it down to that belay station believe me! Top route!
Pitch 1 is rubbish, the rest is 3 stars throughout (including the scramble at the end of the route to get to the summit).
Pitches 2 onwards deserve three stars.
a must do. the continuation scramble is the way to go. more great rock, airy and can be done in trainers. an easy walk off from the top (but be careful on the road!)
I am writing this in the airport after soloing the whole route this morning. Superb and the best bit, after the long walk back down you can have a beer and a swim where you parked the car. How many other routes have that?
A really great One! No need to take friends or chocks along, use slings instead of. There are enough natural gears (threads, slabs etc.).
It was the first time that we climbed such a multi-pitch route, and it was a great experience. Even though we needed more than 5 hours for the route. One reason therefor is that there ar really no bolts. Those existing are rusty and old as my grandmother. So you really have to look for opporturnities to use your gear, and, maybe even more important, you have to constantly check, wheather you are on the right line, because you don't see the next bolt you have to head for. The other problem is, that there are much more stances then described in the book. So it isn't just difficult to find the right line, but also to find the right stances. We used one more stance than discribed in the book and made it a 8-pitch route.
As already commented in the database by another climber we also needed eight pitches, because the 6th pitch is definitively longer than 50 meters. After that pitch I tried to have a look at the face for the abseil down, but I wasn't able to see any bolt. So we choosed descent two. Nearly all the bolts on the ridge to the summit I found last year are removed! That means attention on windy weather.
Descent 2 took me just over an hour, and my partner an hour and a half! It was utterly hideous and I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy. You also need to take care when down by the dry river bed - there's an easy-to-miss diversion out of the bed (small cairn on the left looking downstream), which if missed leads to steep slippery scrambling. |