El Panal (The Honeycomb) is one of those places that could be defined as the antithesis of the crowded and trendy crags from nowadays. The hallmarks of this demanding and historic wall are short, explosive routes with very little holes, both in number and size. The crag offers almost forty vertical and slightly overhang walls which rarely reach 20 meters and where crimps and pockets will put our foot technique and our finger strength to the test. That is why, like its neighbor Los Techos, it is an area mainly recommended for advanced climbers.
Its beginnings go back to the final years of the 80s, when the quartet formed by Manuel Pérez "Manolo", Fco. A. Candela "Cipol", Fco. Sánchez "More" and José M. Tomás "Greñes " began with the bolting of the vertical walls on the right side of the sector. Shortly after, at the beginning of the 90s, a very young Rafael Llopis, together with the aforementioned "Manolo", would raise the global level of the crag to an unsuspected point for the time being. Between 1991 and 1993, this guy from Elche was able to carry out impressive ascents such as those of the Via Queen 8b, or the solo climb of Heroes in time 7c +, facts that, although they hardly had any transcendence outside the merely local scope, placed the crag way ahead of Spanish sport climbing. After these events, the area would gradually fall into oblivion until a new group of people from Crevillente, leaded by José J. González "Kiki" and Vicent Martínez, would give a new and definitive impulse that would almost complete the current total of the routes in the crag.
