Exploring the famous Calanque de Marseille
Of the well known climbing areas of France the Calanque on the mediterranean coast might be the most bucketlistly for intermediate climbers. And why not with the promise of great limestone climbing right above the sea and perfect weather almost year round. However there are a few catches…
Beautiful, unique - but crowded and hyped
While rambling around in the south of France meeting fellow climbers along the way we arrived in Cassis, a fairly posh port town and maybe the best place as a Calanque base camp. On our way we already had great experiences in the Ariège valley in the Pyrenees and the fabulous Gorges de Tarn and Jonte - so our level of expectation was admittedly fairly high.
Wild camping is almost impossible and (according to the word on the street) also fairly dangerous at the coast and we set up camp at the only campground in Cassis. From here the approaches to the climbing areas in the deep fjords further along the coast are a combination of riding bikes and hiking (1,5-2h).
The routes in the first Calanques from Cassis are four to five pitch affairs mostly in medium (French 5c/6a) grades. Climbing here is good: solid protection and lines following prominente features. However among the multipitch areas I have visited in the last few years the climbing is not among the best by a longshot. The landscape however is definitely very nice and the approach hike already shows off quite a bit of it.
Still the biggest „problem“ is the sheer amount of people that visit this area. Besides climbers (that crowd the most popular routes) there are hikers and tourist boats dumping even more people onto the small beaches.
Besides climbing we also sampled cycling (pretty cool after getting away from the coast), kayaking (very good) and pizza (exelent).
After a few days of exploring the area we moved on further inland to one of the many super nice and far less busy climbing areas. And that’s what I would recommend: Do take a look at the Calanque but do not stay here for too long!
Adventurers: Brigitte, Julia, Micha, Wolf and Bengt