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Ups – Epic Climbing, Awesome People, and Beautiful Country
We finally left San Gil after staying there for far longer than we had planned. We drove to Villa de Leyva, a beautiful little colonial town surrounded by mountains. The hostel we parked at was very nice and we stayed in the quaint little spot for an extra day because it was so mellow and relaxing. (more…)
La Mojarra was epic! Whether you were climbing, in the yoga room, showering, hanging on the couch, or yes, even making an open-air, cliffside deposit, the view was consistently and absolutely spectacular! Oh, and the 100+ routes within a minute’s walk or so don’t hurt the ambiance either 🙂 (more…)
Boquete – Two obvious basalt formations just 5 minutes from town. If this was somewhere with a lot of climbing it would be considered excessively grid bolted… but it’s not somewhere with a lot of climbing, so the gym-style bolt grid simply means more routes in a land with hardly any. Great fun, mostly easy clip ups on the first formation though the second formation has some 11s and 12s. The crux for many of the less travelled routes will be small wasp and bee nests. Lots of those. We climbed nearly every route and only had one issue with them though. The bees don’t really sting, more like bite…
Punto Muerto – Outdoor climbing gym. Great place to camp and meet local climbers who can show you the spots – they’re not the easiest to find, in fact, I’m not sure we’d have made it to any of them with out a hand from the locals.
El Diente – Sharp Granite, lots of sport. Close to town.
El Escalon – Really good basalt trad. Something for everyone here and the cracks are really featured.
El Cuajo – An excellent sport wall. A few 10s, but mostly it shines for it’s 11s and harder.
Best pic I have unfortunately, lots of good rock here though
La Bufa – Fun sport on pocketed and featured volcanic rock.
Bernal – Climb the Monolith. Really cruiser 3-5 pitch 5.9 that goes right to the top.
Cascada de la Concepcion – Rap in and trad out, lots of splitters.
Las Manzanas – 3 sport zones, 1 trad zone (pictured). We only climbed at the trad zone, it was excellent. Some of the best cracks we climbed in Mexico.
After Central America, Colombia will be a sight for sore eyes if you’re looking for routes!
La Mojarra – Just wow! This place is amazing – second only to Suesca. The Rock Shelter Hostel is awesome, the views are breath taking, and the climbing is really good. Well over 100 well bolted lines exist with excellent routes in every grade. A handful of interesting looking trad lines exist too.
Suesca – Great traditional climbing. The routes are stiff and it’s a place where you have to respect the grades a bit. When you do catch a bolt you tend to be very glad for it. There are classics of every grade. It’s good to reach out to the locals for info here. The current guia (if you can even find one) is bad and old, and there are lines you really shouldn’t miss. People couldn’t be more friendly though and about every local seems to be a climber!
Penas Blanca –Â Not worth your time
Don’t go! Not for climbing. A popular site in Columbia called Monodedo mentions there being 10 routes there to do and it only being a 30 minute hike. It’s more like a very steep 1.5-2 hour hike. The trail, while good most of the way is littered with hundreds of spiders and webs, you will need a stick to knock them down unless you prefer to do that sort of thing with your face. Upon reaching the entrance to the Eco Park, which was a very nice lady’s house, you will pay the $2 per person, get a complimetnary cup of juice, and be let in with the gate promptly locked behind you. When the climbing trail branches off from the main trail you then scramble up a mosquito infested wet, thickly vegetated gully. Just when you think, this sucks, perhaps we should just turn around, you’ll arrive to find a handful of dirty, short routes – half only about 20 feet in length. We didn’t even bother to do a route. Great exercise though!
