Most of the tours in this guide can be described as medium difficulty in regards to the pure climbing skills - meaning up to grade 6a. However the level of protection of the climb, quality of rock, exposure, wayfinding and ease of retreat might bump up the „felt“ difficulty significantly.
Our suggestion is that you pick tours that are well within your leading ability - especially if the protection is not perfect. If you are comfortably onsighting 5c you can do almost all of the tours and have fun (e.g. not be scared all the time).
No worries, though: There are plenty of tours that can be done at a lower grade, too, either fully freeclimbed or sometimes by aiding through the hardest bits.
In general the protection of the climbs can be sorted into three categories described below. Of course, we will get into detail for each tour.
- Fully sport bolted: Most of these tours are found in the Sa Gubia crag and we will not talk about them in this guide as they are well documented online and in other books already. However there are a few lesser known tours in this category elsewhere on the island. Besides being just safer and needing less gear (aka just quickdraws and general sport climbing equipment) these tours also are mostly easy in terms of way finding - just follow the line of bolts. Belays are bomber in these tours as well.
- Partly bolted: Many tours do have bolts in parts. Often at the belays or at the most critical / hardest bits. You will need to bring additional gear (slings, cams etc.). Even for those routes where the harder parts do have bolts the pitches just a bit easier might be unprotected and quite bolt - pun intended.
- Traditional / Alpine: Some of the tours do not have any or very few pieces of fixed gear. You might find a bolt here or there, some old rusty pitons or some slings threaded through rock features. Some of the tours are climbed almost never and even if you find old gear it is not trustworthy. Rappelling (bailing) off these routes might mean you need to leave some of your gear.
We cannot tell you what exactly to bring as this depends on your personal preferences and comfort level, still there are a few things we learned that we can share:
- Ropes: Many climbs have pitches or rappels over 30 meters. Climbing with two 60 meter double / half ropes would be natural. However we have had good experiences climbing with a single 60 meters and only carrying a second 60 meters half rope for rappels. In some cases you might get away just with the 60 meter single if you can walk off from the top (be sure that in this case the climb is clearly within your level of ability) or the rappels are less than 30 meters.
- Quickdraws: Fifteen draws are plenty for most tours. Taking sport draws is fine, however having a few longer ones might come in handy especially on the more trad / alpine routes.
- Protection: Bring slings - a lot of them! The rock on the island lends itself to threads or hitches around rock horns (60 and 120 cm work very well). Any cams should be on the smaller side to fit into the many pockets and small cracks (up to Black Diamond Camalot Number 2). Nuts and hexes can be made to work but are not super useful.