FIVE MORE CUBAN CLASSICS FROM THE VALLE DE VIÑALES

1. Babalú Ayé  (5.10d), 4 pitches,  Mogote de los Hoyos.  FA:  Aníbal Fernández and Craig Luebben (2001)

This route surrounds you with bulging tufas and hanging stalactites, and offers spectacular views of farmlands and forests. A Drago palm growing near the end of the first pitch marks a rough trail to the start. The line starts up a narrow and shallow 20-foot tufa. 

2. Cuenta con la Pelona (5.11a), 4 pitches, El Campismo, Mogote del Valle. FA Josué Millo and Reiniel Sosa (2003)

The first two pitches are mellower, both clocking in around 5.9, while the third pitch is the crux. The fourth is steep and sustained, but short.

3. Flyin’ Hyena (5.12b), 5 pitches, Bóveda de las Españolas, La Costanera. FA: Cameron Cross, Craig Luebben, Armando Menocal (1999)

Start Flyin’ Hyena by climbing a 40-foot-long root. Traverse left across a gritty-dirty ledge into an alcove. The second pitch starts right and then straight up. Third pitch follows the diagonal crack up and left to tufa columns and stalactites. The fourth heads up and right to other columns and stalactites at the edge of a roof. The fifth pitch climbs almost horizontally across the roof. Proper taglines are essential on this climb. Pitches 1 and 2, and 4 and 5 can be linked with a 60m rope. From top of P5, the leader must jumar back to belay P4 on the tagline or can pull back into the belay for P3 if tagline has been anchored at belay P3. A leader could easily be stranded in space here, if she blows the descending tactics.

4. Wasp Factory (5.12c), 1 pitch, Cueva Cabeza de la Vaca, Mogote del Valle. FA: Neil Gresham (2002)

Much dedication and trickery was required by this route’s developers (an extremely strong, productive team from Sheffield, England) to wrest this spectacular cavern from the grip of nesting wasps.

5. Malanga Hasta la Muerte (5.12d), 1 pitch, El Rocódromo at Cueva Cabeza de la Vaca, Mogote del Valle.  FA: David Brasco, Roas Catalá (2001)

Malanga Hasta La Muerte has become the local testpiece. This route climbs above Taking the Bull by the Horn, a toprope boulder problem abandoned when someone, somehow managed to steal the hangers from the top bolts.

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