I've spent the past week sport climbing on the stunning 50-70m walls along the Rio Turia, just west of Valencia, Spain. I am here with Washington friends Benjit Hull and Chris Allen, and it has been great climbing with these guys. I had a bit of a baggage kerfuffle to begin the trip, and arrived with only my carry-on pack. Luckily, I had my harness as well as one supertight slipper and a loose warmup shoe, and they weren't even for the same foot, so I could climb!
Chulilla is an ideal spot to tick mega enduro pitches in the .11+ to .13+ range, with endurance being the name of the game on gently overhung waves of tufa-draped stone. The only thing it doesn't have is a big cave, or excellent low-grade climbing. From the tiny town (one bakery, one bar, one town square, etc etc) it's a 5-40minute walk to all the walls. I managed to onsight a couple 5.12c pitches early on, and topped off my week in Chulilla with a flash of the 40m .13a "Remanso de las Mulas", my first flash of that grade. My final day, I sent the area classic "Tequila Sunrise" (.13a/.13b) second try. (Video at the bottom of thsi post)
Here are a few psyche-you-up videos (not mine) that capture the area, and some of my photos. Valencia is also an amazing town, only 30 miles away, and with excellent rest day touristing opportunities, particularly the old castles, downtown region, huge central food/seafood market, and the City of Arts and Sciences.
Overall I HIGHLY recomend Chulilla for a visit, since you don't need a car once you arrive, the climbing is killer, there are hundreds of routes within a walk from the quaint town, and it seems to be dry and pleasant here all the time, even when it was storming hard and raining/snowing a couple hours north in Catalonia.
My array of ticketing/lost bag material - que lastima!
Chris Allen and I streaming the superbowl on a tiny computer after hacking into the interwebs (we weren't supposed to stream it from Europe.)
Tequila Sunrise 5.13- (It's actually overhanging the whole way)
Cobra Tufa atop the 40m masterpiece "Ramallar" 7c/.12d
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