Bóveda de Orihuela

The ‘Bóveda de Orihuela’ is one of the most important crags in the South Costa Blanca. Many of its routes have become cult lines for climbers from Murcia and Alicante, who have chosen routes at Bóveda to push their grade, occasionally breaking though the legendary eighth-grade barrier. Bóveda has many impressive, overhanging routes with good holds, tufas and plenty of crimps, along with some amazing, gently overhanging walls. Though there are some sixth-grade routes, Bóveda is really a hard crag which will be best enjoyed by the 7th and 8th grade climber. In the centre of the cave the routes are quite close to each other, and whilst there are many variants and combinations, only the original routes are shown here.

Javier Penalva (‘Liebre’) was the main developer. Javier started bolting the central routes of the cave some 25 years ago, together with his wife Manola Narro and his friend Pedro Cases (‘Perico’). Others involved in the original development were Javier’s brother Migel, José Matas, Alex Kammerlander and Ramón Gómez (‘Cone’) though there were timely contributions from other local bolters too.