Raging in el Chorro

As the train came rolling into el chorro, I was immediately greeted by towering limestone mountains, and amazing views. I immediately started hiking up the hill with my backpacking brimming with climbing gear, absolutely struggling in the heat, but I eventually found the Olive Branch, a climbing hostel which gave me a place to camp. This turned out to be a blessing because I ended up meeting a ton of climbing partners there and every night we would relax and tell stories from the day. There were people from Austria, Germany, Czech, UK. Everyone had gathered to climb and enjoy the beautiful scenery.  I ended up sleeping in a hammock the next 4 nights under the stars because I didn't have a tent, but luckily the weather was quite nice the whole time I was there. 



El Chorro at a glance

The first day I ended up meeting up with a guy I met on Mountain Project, and online climbing forum. This man was like 70 and the knew the area quite well, had quite the spirit. The next day I was itching to get off the deck so I ended up doing a multipitch with someone one I had met the previous night at the hostel. The route was nine pitches, so we thought we would need a ton of time, and got up early for it. However we ended up cruising the route in under 4 hours, swapping leads and having the time of our life. Just vertical face climbing that ended in a spectacular airy traverse 500 feet off the deck.

Had some faf to deal with on the rappels though which took extra time on the way down.

 

Saskia on pitch 6  of Amptrax

The Next few days, we spent pulling hard, I tried some of the moves on a spectacular 7c and we brought some people with us from the hostel to the Despomilandia crag. Ended the day with a swim in the lake. Perfect


Sunday we were feeling pretty worked so Jonathan, Saskia and I teamed up for the via ferrata, and even got some pitches in at the end of the day, meeting some UK climbers on a ledge and talking for hours as the sun got lower in the sky. It felt sad to leave my new friends. Will definitely have to come back.


Jonathan on the via ferrata (This one included a zip wire across the canyon too!)

Desplomilandia with the beautiful blue lake below.

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