[ali k]

Posted this on UKC but thought it worth putting here too.

I went up to Siurana earlier this week and was pretty appalled by what I saw in the main car park at the top. In the four and a bit years I've lived here and been visiting regularly it was the worst I've seen it in terms of lack of respect for the villagers.

There always have been a few vans parked up in the various lay-bys over the years but in the last couple of years especially the Costa Daurada crags have seen a huge rise in popularity. Van dossing and discrete wild camping have always been tolerated, but there is a point at which it will no longer be that way. The Spanish are as bad as anyone for lack of respect when camping / van dossing so this rant is by no means restricted to visiting climbers but there were several vans on UK plates in the car park - one of which had their gas bottle and tarpaulin still spread out while they were presumably off climbing. Please lead by example and have a word with anyone who is behaving irresponsibly and leaving stuff out while they go off climbing. Just because it's currently tolerated does not make it acceptable.

Examples of behaviour I saw that I personally deem unacceptable include:- (remember this is on one visit - imagine seeing this day in day out when you live there)

- Tents still pitched at 10.30am (in the main tourist car park FFS!)
- Washing line strung up between tree/van with washing left hanging up to dry during the day.
- People coming out of the forest or wandering round the car park with bog rolls in their hand (hmmm I wonder where they've just been)
- Chairs / tarpaulins / stoves / pots / rubbish bags etc left out during the day next to vans.

Considering this is all in the main visitor car park for what is a very popular tourist spot (not just climbers) and only 100m away from the village. Popular with walkers, sightseers, restaurant goers - all of whom actually spend money in the village rather than just do a massive Lidl shop and then doss in the car park for a week or two whilst sh*tting all over the forest and contributing nothing to local business. It honestly looked like a traveller's site when I arrived there in the morning.

Sorry for the rant and tarring everyone but visiting climbers have a part to play in this and should act responsibly.

[ChrisC]

whilst sh*tting all over the forest

Last year the people that bothered to walk to the forest were in the minority.  Many thought it acceptable to shit between the castle and the car park - ie less than 10 m away from the car park.  Either that or on the airy ledge on the cliff top side of the car park. 

It was a tough call as to where the most squalid place was - Margalef or Siurana.   The public loos in the village are pretty poorly signed so I imagine many simply don't even know they exist.

[ChrisC]

And Ceuse

In June the standard car park doss was a beautiful place to stay, the only really bad thing I saw in 6 weeks was a team having a full on strip wash in the drinking water font.  When we returned in September however it was very different... 

The car park looked like a rave had just passed through and on the path to the crag 20m from the car park was a sign, with a trowel attached.  The gist of the sign was something like "Friends, climbers, people.  This is ceuse, our garden, your garden.  Would you shit in your garden?  If not why would you do it here?"

[ali k]

Yeh September maybe three years ago there was a group of Slovenians staying there in the woods at Ceuse. Real pricks they were. Repeatedly lighting fires at night even after we'd kicked it out a few times and given them an earful. Almost came to blows over it. Cannot understand people's mentality sometimes.

[TobyD]

Sorry for the rant and tarring everyone but visiting climbers have a part to play in this and should act responsibly.

 

good post - nice one. This needs addressing by the sounds of it, or it could end up going the way of Buoux in the 90s and being banned. It is, as you say, a well known non-climber destination as well, and they are likely to be even more unhappy with this sort of ghetto in it.