Chulilla April 2016 - "was this gorge a quarry?"
As ever so far behind. But as ever, collating a nice little collection of photos to motivate and inspire both myself and hopefully some others. Yes, climbing as a local sport is fantastic but getting out and using it as an excuse to see the world can't be recommended enough. Go forth and enjoy.
Overview
We'd a little trip out to Chulilla around Easter. The lowlight was it being 'around Easter' meaning the crowds were a little daft at times, but everything else is special. It's a unique spot, one of the "holiday climbing destinations" - i.e. the whole package is amazing, from the beautiful local village, to the people, to the scenery, to the climbing.
The quote in the title: Naomi's brother was out to visit for a day to do some film work as part of a project for a course he's on right now. It was so insightful, a non-climber seeing this sort of place for the first time and his initial impression that the gorge was manufactured by human hand: that this stunning gorge was actually man-made. Spending so much time going to these sorts of climbing venues for so long, it's easy to almost forget that these amazing natural locations are not something that everyone will get to see. Another reminder of how lucky we are to find this amazing sport of climbing.
Observations based on the return from the previous year:
- It's still a brilliant area, my opinion hasn't changed.
- The climbing is particularly vertical to slightly over-hanging so if that's your interest, you'll love it. If you're looking for big burly, powerful routes - you may want to look elsewhere. Bring a decent level of strength in fingers for small-edge holds, plus great footwork/technique, and you'll love it.
- There's so much great hiking and walks in the area. Wow. Suspect if you like you're hill-running, you'd be a very happy individual here.
- El Altico refugio/hostel is still brilliant. With the lovely Pedro and Nuria running the cool venue, a swimming pool, the best view in the area of the gorge from the balcony, it's hard to fault the place.
- We had a visitor in the guise of Naomi's brother who's not a climber. Videos embedded below of Naomi's little fun project/interviews on climbing and yoga. And we got to use a frickin' drone to record some climbing footage!
Playing with the Olloclip on iPhone - grabbing it's first shot with a fisheye.
Olloclip again - good range and funky images. Al/Aoife playing on a new 7b
I really should have kept that mug for myself.....
Spain life
15x zoom from the Olloclip: a half-centimetre long bug off the tree
The beautiful village of Chillage in all its glory. What must people have thought when they first arrived into this valley?!
Chulilla from the top of the hill - highly recommended walk if anyone makes it out there
10x zoom onto bark - 1 cm piece.
10x zoom - 1cm piece. Great quality from the camera - getting closer and closer to professional camera quality.
The climbing gorge from the balcony of the El Altico refugio
abstract
I posted this on Instagram also but worth mentioning again: there's a tiny baby in that little pop-tent with the grandmother. And the mum is up crushing a hard route....after the dad had run laps on it all day. Awesome.
This one also went to Instagram: starting up the wonderful 'Ramallah' (the 8a variation), 40 metres of amazingly varied climbing. Photo credit: Sarah and Jason Ahmed.
Naomi cruising up on of the local classic 7b's, making it look easy as usual. Photo credit: Sarah and Jason Ahmed.
