Hoya Moros: What you need to know

I recently spent a couple of weeks in Hoya Moros, Spain's premier alpine bouldering spot. Most of my own trip was trying to get my mojo back after a long summer of all work and no climbing. Anyway, here's more or less what you can expect.

The location is undeniably spectacular, high enough to avoid the heat, surrounded by mountains and criss-crossed by streams. It almost never rains in summer, the water is drinkable, birds and lizards abound, five stars. Worth a visit even if it is just to hike around.

Yeah, it's that pretty.

The rock is...while the lines of the boulders are definitely spectacular, the rock itself is among the most painful granite I've ever climbed on, and I have experience in that area. Here's a quick top four:
1. Barruecos (Extremadura) Like climbing on broken glass, crumbly broken glass that breaks all the time.
2. Traba (Galicia) the same as above, at least it's a bit more solid.
3. Hoya Moros (Castilla y Leon) Solid but those crystals bite! You can have five tries and rip five flappers: be prepared to mummify your hands in tape.
4. The rest: Dartmoor (it's not that bad!) Corme, Escorial, Pedriza. Still definitely granite, but less obnoxious session enders.

Que Cucada 7B+   just about worth the pain.

999. Magic Wood: The holy grail of granite, I imagine it's like sandstone in all but name.

Death Cows: The guide tells you not to mess with the cattle, but they will almost certainly mess with you. I only got charged once, I had to speed climb a 4+ slab to escape. They freely roam around the bouldering areas and looove standing under the boulder problem you've just decided to try.

The walk in is 8C+ I've walked in to a lot of boulders in my time, but this was definitely the longest and hardest. (insert joke here) It's about three hours (if you don't get lost) over rocky terrain with crashpads, food and camping gear. Did I mention it's up a giant mountain? With the combination of the altitude, sun and heavy load, you'll almost certainly have a pounding headache when you arrive at the boulders.

Once you're up it's easier There are some stashed crashpads for everyone and there's a really nice system where you donate your leftover food to other groups before you go down. On a rest day you can take a dip in the freezing river or hike up to the top of the mountain or even go down for a coffee in the town of Candelario.

Now to the issue that seemed to be worrying the local climbers and developers: Overcrowding. Regulars are worried about the ever increasing popularity of the zone. Although there is a new bouldering guide in the works, locals are naturally concerned that a new guide would cause an influx of people and damage the access situation. 

However, with two videos (you know which ones they are) being posted to a popular scorecard based climbing website this summer and generating over twenty thousand hits worldwide. I think it's safe to say that the cat is out of the (chalk)bag at this point. Anybody who wants to know, already knows. It's game over as far as keeping the zone a secret is concerned.  

Atila 7C        definitely one of the best.

I'm not convinced overcrowding even represents a genuine problem for Hoya Moros. For example, when I was there, there were maybe thirty people, all from either Spain or Portugal. When I visited Albaracín last summer (i.e. not even the climbing season, when it's supposed to be quiet) In addition to the crowds of Spaniards, I met French, English, Americans and even some Israelis. My point is that despite all that exposure on international climbing websites, comparatively few people, and certainly less foreigners are visiting the area. Maybe Hoya Moros will suffer from too many Spanish people, but I'm not sure that it will ever get the international attention received by Albarracín. 

It seems that rule breaking rather than overcrowding is the problem here. If everybody obeyed the rules, the locals would be a lot less cagey about overcrowding in 'their' area. The solution is not to be secretive and possessive of the zone, this seems a bit like elitism and as mentioned earlier, that ship has already sailed. There is already a clear set of well publicised rules. Hopefully they can be enforced from within the climbing community. These rules can be found here. Read, share and follow people! I want to be ripping flappers and complaining about the hike for many years to come...