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Mailloux
Mar 20, 2016, 3:54 AM
Post #1 of 2
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Registered: Feb 2, 2016
Posts: 2
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I wanted to post this for anyone who was planning a trip to this beautiful place to climb.
We stayed at a beautiful resort in Las Galeras called Grand Paradise. Great place, food, people. We went hoping to do some climbing at Fronton beach and found this Resort close and accommodating.
The excusions through the hotel were way overpriced and many of the local tour operators were quick to catch on. Everything in the Samana peninsula is expensive. We actually didn't dive because the prices were so high.
We found a great tour operator, 7 Tours, in Las Galeras, who took 3 of us there for $100 US for the day (9am-4pm). They laughed at us when we wanted to go at 7am or stay later than 4pm. This was the best deal we could find. Rum and cola were provided but neither of those mix with climbing.
EL PARADISE it is!! beautiful rock!!! beautiful beach!!!
As we got to the beach it was clear this was going to be great. I didn't count on the morning sun scorching the rock. As we started to inspect the wall it was clear the hand drawn map we found online wasn't much help.
To add to the difficulty in finding routes, there was much difficulty in finding hangers or bolts. The rock is a black with white striations making it impossible to find light color or dark color bolts.
We did bring trad gear but this was daunting. The sun baked the stone it reminded us of walking on asphalt in the summer sun. There was no grip with the sweat on our palms.
A bit frustrated our beautiful beach was turning to a bust we walked down the beach to where a crude palm hut bar was under construction... for many years... and behold a gorgeous big coral boulder on the beach. 30 or so feet tall and great holds, we also found a few glue ins to use.
We had a blast playing on this making new routes and challenging each other.
CAUTION! when moving or clearing beach junk for a nice place to sit, beware of sand fleas!! they bite !! my wife's feet were swollen for days.
The big wall did get some shade at 1pm or so. It just didn't seem worth the trip to the ER in DR to do this wall. With the first clip 30' or so up on the (what we figured) 5.7, we didn't bother. All tour groups leave at 4. Camping is not allowed and fines are delt (so we are told). With so little time in the shade it really isn't a great place to climb.
We did meet a group that walked in. They left from Bocca Del Diablo (cool and must see), 5 or so KMs from Las Galeras. They told us it took an hour.
There was word of Banditos on the trails and roads on the peninsula. I'm sure it was possible, there is little traffic up there. It seemed tho this was a rumor created to encourage tourists to hire a guide, help economy. seems fair.
I see a croudfunding thing to bolt the wall, I wish them luck. That would be a hot job!
As for a great climbing VK it was not. But as an adventure trip it was great. In my research I did find 40 bolted routes around the La Romana / Punta Cana area, and in downtown Santo Domingo in the "central park" there is a great looking overhang that didn't look that high but lots of caves and stalactites with bolted routes.
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cashmang
Feb 12, 2017, 3:29 PM
Post #2 of 2
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Registered: Sep 28, 2009
Posts: 3
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Glad you were able to visit Fronton but I'm sorry to hear that you weren't able to locate the better sport climbing! At the time of your visit, there was certainly very little information available for finding routes (e.g., maps and topos), but that has changed some in the past year, as there has been some updated info posted over at mountain project. Better photographic topos are in the process of being generated, and rebolting of corroded hardware has been underway for the last year. The best crag to climb at in my opinion is currently "Sector Paraiso" as it has the best hardware, greatest number of established routes, and best rock quality. There are other areas a short ways south of Fronton that are also of super high quality but either lack established routes or have routes that desperately need to be rebolted (and they will be in the next year or so).
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