UKC

Hey all, 

looking for some recommendation's for scrambling/climbing routes up mountains in the Ariege Pyrenees. We are staying in Tarascon-sur-Ariège so anything we can access with 1-1.5h from there which are long days out/scrambling/climbing. Can be an overnight trip too (either bivvy or hut). Struggling to find any useful info online.  Was looking at the SE ridge of Pica d'Estats but it doesn't look like you can access that from the French side.

any suggestions appreciated!

many long bolted routes on Orlu - up to 20 odd pitches.   try looking on camptocamp  and also the topo section of the clubalpin foix website.   there are numerous other bolted climbing areas locally with all info on the club alpin site. needless to say Rockfax guide which you can surely buy locally has the climbing info .  You might also try contacting john and anne arran at chezarran.com as they live very local to Tarascon.  John often posts on here.

I used to visit the Ariege quite frequently although its now some years since I've been there. Mostly walking & ski touring. Always fancied one of the routes on the Pic de Ruhle but never had a partner, not sure if the routes are good but worth looking for further information, see eg https://www.camptocamp.org/waypoints/43718/fr/pic-de-rulhe . Access is fairly easy via the Ref de Ruhle.

thanks! Should have said we have the Rockfax guide so aware of the orlu. 

The Ariège section of the Club Alpin Français has a very useful website with simple topos for the vast majority of routes in the area: http://cafma.free.fr/plan.htm

As long as you have rudimentary french it usually gives sufficient info for a good day out, although it notably doesn't mention anything about quality of routes or crags, so you can never be quite sure until you get there whether it's a popular spot or a forgotten backwater.

Areas I'd be looking at for what you seem to be after are Rulhe, Bassiés, Madelon and then up into the Haute Ariège. All of these are very much summer venues at notable altitude, so considerably cooler than the valley cragging, for which you definitely want to be looking at shady venues right now.

Coincidentally, I've just finished developing a shady valley crag (Sabart - Secteur émojis), with routes from 4c upwards, right on the edge of Tarascon, if you feel like a bit of very accessible cragging in afternoon shade. There's no topo as such but all necessary info is now on UKC at https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/sabart-10224/ All routes are named at the base so easy to identify 🙂.

amazing, thank you!

I should maybe point out that the route names are actually the emojis themselves, but the UKC database and website won't accept complex characters in route names!