El Camino del Rey

It's been a little while since I last posted - I've been meaning to write an update of what we've been up to, but it mainly ended up being "we climbed some stuff", which didn't seem very interesting.  We're now comfortably settled in El Chorro with some new friends - Andy managed to override my hermit-like instincts and made contact with several other Brits in vans sharing the same parking area.  We've been out climbing most days, and Andy has been ticking off hard routes like a machine!  I've been having less tangible success - I've been very nervous climbing on lead (starting a route with the rope at the bottom and clipping it into bolts on the way up) so have spent a lot of time top-roping (making Andy climb all of my routes first and fix the rope at the top for me) and trying to regain some confidence in my abilities. But all that's probably a post for another time...

Today we had a rest day from climbing and decided to do something a bit different. 

The most striking geographical feature of El Chorro (and the reason most people come here) is the spectacular Los Gaitanes gorge, and the Camino del Rey (the king's way).  The gorge is a narrow, forbidding defile between two 200m high limestone cliffs - despite this, the Malaga to Seville train line runs through it via a series of tunnels that were blasted through the walls of the east side of the gorge at the start of the 20th century.  In 1905 a walkway was constructed halfway up the wall on the opposite side of the gorge to allow inspection of the workings.  It was named 'the king's way' after a visit by King Alfonso XIII in 1921. Over a hundred years later, the walkway is still (mostly) there, and has been equipped with safety wires so that it can be traversed as a via ferrata.  This is a way to reach all the climbing in the gorge that we've never visited before, but doing the whole thing makes a fun day out in itself.

The first few metres of the walkway have been dismantled to stop people from climbing onto it from the railway bridge.  You now have to climb across and up to it via a series of iron rungs with a safety line clipped onto some fixed wires.  This is the only section of "proper" via ferrata on the route - the rest is just walking but on a a path that might fall down!

The start of the walkway

Via Ferrara start - some of the rungs were a bit of a stretch

The walkway looks a bit rickety from underneath as we get up to it - it seems very impressive that it's lasted this long.

Once reached, the walkway curves round into the gorge and crosses a bridge to reach the west wall.  I had heard other climbers refer to this as the Pipe Bridge.  It turns out this is because it is mostly one massive pipe, carrying water for the hydroelectricity plant below, that you walk over the top of.

The aptly-named Pipe Bridge

The walkway is now in a state of disrepair, and there are a few small gaps.

And big gaps.

Because of this, the walkway is now equipped with safety wires along its whole length.  I got a little worried when I saw this though...

I'm fairly sure that's gaffer tape...

From the western wall we had some impressive views of the railway line at the points where it briefly emerges from the tunnels.

To Seville (left) and Malaga (right)

Further along, the gorge opens out into a pretty valley.  The walkway ends and just becomes a path.  We walked a little way and had lunch in a quiet spot in the sun.  You can see the more remote sectors of climbing from here so we spent some time route spotting with the guidebook.  There is another section of walkway further up the valley in a second canyon, but we didn't do this bit - apparently this section is in a much a worse state of repair than the first and a rope (which we hadn't brought) is needed for some of it.

After a long lunch/sunbathing session we headed back.  I was feeling a lot braver on the return journey.

When we got back it was still light, so Andy decided it was time for a haircut...

Once he was suitably groomed, we headed out to a bar on the way back to Alora for beer, wifi, and blog writing...