Rock Climbing in Costa Blanca

With its perfect bolted limestone crags and excellent climate from October through to April, its no surprise the Costa Blanca has become a popular rock climbing destination. Coupled with the vast array of cheap flights from all over Europe and good quality accommodation Costa Blanca is an ideal place for a good budget rock climbing holiday.

The map below shows the main rock climbing areas within the Costa Blanca region.

For guided or instructed climbing holidays in Costa Blanca we recommend our friends at
Rock & Sun.

Map of the Rock climbing areas within Costa Blanca

(1) - Gandia Area. All the crags are single pitch sports routes with the exception of Aventador crag, which offers multi-pitch sports climbing. There are over 700 routes in this area at 6 different crags.

(2) - Xalo Valley. This area has recently been developed. All the crags are single pitch sports routes with the exception of Segaria crag, which offers multi-pitch traditional climbing. There are over 200 routes in this area at 8 different crags.

(3) - Calpe Area. The 300m tower rising from the sea called the Penon offers superb multi-pitch climbing with both sports and traditional routes. The area offers good sports routes including the sea cliffs of Mascarat and Toix. At the 8 different crags in the Calpe area there are nearly 300 routes to choose from.

(4) - Benidorm Area. The main crag is Sella, which has over 170 routes and offers everything from short easy routes to long multi-pitch traditional climbing. Puig Campana also offers superb long multi-pitch traditional climbing though the hour walk in does put some people off. There are 6 different crags with over 450 routes to choose from in this area.

(5) - Alicante Area. With 13 different crags to choose from, there are many quality single and 2-pitch routes in this area offering fantastic sports climbing. The crag at Reconco (north east of Sax) has many quality long multi-pitch routes that again are fully bolted and is well worth considering as a good alternative to the crags in the Benidorm/Calpe areas.

(6) - Murcia Area. There are only 3 crags in this area, though all are extensive with over 240 quality sports routes. The best is a huge crag called Leyva, south of Mula, with some long multi-pitch sports routes.

The classic Penon crag at Calpe.

Situation and Character

The rock climbing at Costa Blanca is very extensive and varied but more important it is the quality of the routes that is fantastic. Good quality bolted limestone. The rock climbing varies from short single pitch road side crags through to long multi-pitch routes in the mountains.

The above information has been extracted from the excellent Rockfax Costa Blanca climbing guidebook for the area, which describes over 2,500 routes - enough to keep the most enthusiastic rock climber going for a week or three! However due to the abundance good quality rock around, new routes and areas are being opened up, with many local topo's published.

Care Hire
It is definitely desirable to hire a car due to the wide area these crags cover. Car hire can be pre-booked (usually cheaper and picked up at the airport or resort).

Accommodation
The choice is huge, from package deals in Benidorm to villas in Calpe, Benidorm and Alicante. All are excellent bases to visit any of the crags, though some will take over an hour to get there. See our Costa Blanca accommodation page, which has details of the apartments/villas that are suitable for rock climbers to rent on a weekly basis in Costa Blanca.

Click on these images to view a larger photograph of the excellent rock climbing to be found in the Costa Blanca area.