After a mountaineering day out yesterday it was back to rock climbing today. We had planned on climbing the classic El Dorado in the afternoon and something else in the morning. After a very leisurely start which involved eating breakfast in the sun, we decided to head for Magical Mystery Tour which is described as a classic expedition in the guidebook.
The guidebook says that the route requires trad gear and is HVS 5a in UK grades, but it is now fully bolted and is certainly not HVS and I am not sure where the 5a the guidebook referred to was. If you aren’t confident climbing f5 then a set of wires may not be a bad idea for the final pitch.
The start of the route was an superb 40m free hanging abseil which was very atmospheric. The first few pitches were very easy and thankfully a slower party in front of us kindly let us past them on these pitches.
The main pitches of the route involved excellent climbing with lots of exposed traversing and enjoyable climbing. The climbing was never hard, but the atmosphere of the route was brilliant and it was just really enjoyable.
After this time was getting on, and we didn’t really feel like heading over to El Dorado, so headed up to some sport and enjoyed a few routes in the setting sun. The light in the evening was really surreal with strange cloud formations, and beautiful mist forming in the lowlands above Benidorm.
Exposed free hanging abseil
Atmospheric Abseil
Exposed traverse on P2
Becky leading the third pitch
Excellent positions
Another team on P2
Becky on the last few moves
Weird evening clouds