Serra da Estrela - Our Backyard

Serra da Estrela - Our Backyard

By Daniela and Paulo

Serra da Estrela: Trekking adventures in Portugal's highest mountains.

Star Mountain

“Serra da Estrela”literally translatesto “Star Mountain”, and is the highest mountain of continental Portugal. This beautifulgranite massiflocated in the eastern-center of the country, is the only place with established winter climbing routes, both mixed and ice.

We consider Serra da Estrela as our backyard! This privilege means that we can leave our front door already equipped with mountain boots, and the harness on!

Yet, this “Winter” has been one of the worst winters ever! Up until recently, just a few cold days with snowallowed some climbable conditions. and we took the chance!

With a very shy presence of ice (to say the least) we managed to climb a few ice routes, always protecting (like we are used in Serra da Estrela) with a few short ice-screws – the rock is always a few inches from the surface of the ice. Good fun anyway!

Living in Serra da Estrelameans we can have all the climbing spectrum in a short period of time. On the day after that good ice climbing day, we were roped at the base of arock project just half an hourfrom the ice cascades.and half an hour from our front door! This time we opened a new four pitches aid route and, in the end, the rock project became just another. project! A free climbing one! We left the place feeling we needed to work out a little bit more on our pull-ups before dreaming of freeing this brand-new route.

Once more, we went home with that amazing thought: “Where in the world can we do some good ice climbing and, in the very next day, just a few kilometres away, rock climb, wearing light clothes?” We are pretty convinced the answer is: “Very few places!”

Down Jackets and Synthetic Insulation
Filoment vest in Kelp Alpkit mens filoment vest recycled down gilet in black

Filoment Vest [Mens]

Micro-baffle down gilet
£119.99
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Micro-baffle down Gilet; Light and unrestricted warmth
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Filoment Hoody [Mens]

Ultralight and packable hooded micro-baffle down jacket
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Fantom [Mens]

Warm and compressible 650 FP down jacket for the coldest conditions
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Waiting to climb in Yosemite

Waiting to climb in Yosemite

The weather is pretty tasty in Yosemite National Park right now, there is no way I am going to start complaining about clear blue skies and tempera...
September 10, 2008
Alpkit team at the Ice Climbing World Cup

Alpkit team at the Ice Climbing World Cup

Ice climbing competitions are a funny thing, a whole lot of people get together to test against each other, but they all do it for different reason...
January 27, 2011
ICE Fest - 2009 Ice cliimbing festival

ICE Fest - 2009 Ice cliimbing festival

This trip was a true team bonding experience, while also giving my Supersofts a chance to come out of retirement for another shot at the big league...
January 16, 2009
Albarracin bouldering and ash clouds

Albarracin bouldering and ash clouds

Albarracin is situated in Spain between Valencia and Zaragoza and offers an excellent bouldering venue. Grades are definitely holiday grades so a g...
May 14, 2010
FontaineFun

FontaineFun

Home again, every time I go somewhere amazing it seems like no time has passed and I’m back to school. Fontainebleau is one of those places where m...
March 17, 2011
Greenland - a dirtbag expedition

Greenland - a dirtbag expedition

We are three good friends, Yorkshireman Jonny Briggs, Graeme Glover (a hairy Scotsman) and Essex boy Josh Glanvill. We met at Plas y Brenin doing a...
April 14, 2011
Sport climbing in Ceuse

Sport climbing in Ceuse

A camp above the white cliffs, mayhem through Paris, a night in the hammock and we are finally settled in with the Rig 7 tarpaulin set up with the ...
July 08, 2011
Head in Gear

Head in Gear

It feels that finally I’ve got my head in gear to do stuff, despite not at the level I expected due to many factors. Still, I’m having loads of fun...
February 17, 2011
Bouldering Team Crush at Font

Bouldering Team Crush at Font

Becki Hall, Hannah Beresford, Gracie Martin, Luke Tilley, Edd Mowbray, Billy Rydal and Tom Bonnert were part of the team that accompanied me on my ...
March 01, 2010
MIC training at the Brenin

MIC training at the Brenin

It has been a pretty unsuccessful winter for many, but lucky for me mine has been very productive! I managed to get my Winter Mountain Leader finis...
March 20, 2012
37 degrees and 53 problems

37 degrees and 53 problems

“53 problems?! You have got to be kidding me! I don’t usually move at 37 degrees let alone climb!” So, there we were in sunny Ailfroide for Tout a ...
August 01, 2007
BMC Coaching Day

BMC Coaching Day

I was lucky enough to have my name put forward for the BMC National Academy training days. I went to the first training day at The Edge at Sheffiel...
October 20, 2011
Searching for ice on the Ben

Searching for ice on the Ben

So on Thursday evening me and the Captain (Alex Dalton) set off to beautiful rainy and warm Scotland for a smudging of ice climbing. Problem i...
February 09, 2011
Team Sky Ropes

Team Sky Ropes

A crack team from Alpkit GHQ headed to Thornbridge Outdoors in order to see what they could throw at them. The Big Shakeout weekend is all set to ...
August 30, 2011
M12 Mixed climbing

M12 Mixed climbing

Virtually no low level snow has made a couple of trips up to the Breitwangflu easier than normal partly because no skis are needed and partly becau...
February 17, 2011
A summer in the Alps

A summer in the Alps

This was started with the Tout a Bloc climbing fest, a fest that was amazing not just for the competitor but for the spectator as well, with so man...
August 26, 2008
Beth in Beijing

Beth in Beijing

If you hear a group of climbers discussing Great Wall, you assume they will be talking about that classic rock climb on Cloggy scene of many an epi...
September 08, 2005

Cogne Ice Climbing

This week I was called the “epitome of dedication”. I think they might be right. Kris and I have been training for a specific goal this winter, our...
January 23, 2012
Fontainebleau Coaching Week

Fontainebleau Coaching Week

So the annual trip to the bouldering Mecca Font has happened once again, on February 19th 12 young climbers and 8 Jurassics (older than young) hit ...
March 07, 2011

Deep s*** soloing and a windy whip

The last month or so has been a bit sensitive in our house. We mused at the beginning of the year that we were all going to get really strong or re...
December 11, 2012
New trad route in Oeschinensee, Kandersteg

New trad route in Oeschinensee, Kandersteg

On Monday we went up to have another look at the unclimbed line we spotted after our retreat from “Buch Dich”. The good thing about the line is tha...
February 08, 2011

Italy- Dolomites

Back in September Dan and I headed to the Dolomites. The plan was to do some alpine classic rock, enjoy the mountains, look for new lines, maybe at...
November 06, 2013
Fontainebleau Dispatch

Fontainebleau Dispatch

We arrived at the gîte at three in the morning. The door was unlocked but Ken thought it best that we spent at least one night dirtbag style. Drivi...
February 28, 2010

Electric Blue

At the end of a summer centered around competing in the European Youth Cups I had one weekend booked since January that I was really looking forwar...
September 24, 2012

Ice World Cup

Indoor dry tooling is really quite a strange sport when you think about it! Any time I've attempted to explain it to a friend, I have stumbled over...
February 13, 2014

A Tangent Tale from Tested Tips in October

It is Grit stone and board sessions that are leaving me bruised at the moment, it is the tips that are taking the biggest battering. After a fun we...
December 24, 2012

Tea and tooling

Saturday morning 7 AM. The world was silent, the nation slept soundly in their warm beds, all that is apart from a small group of climbers awaking ...
November 13, 2014
The "Goods" bootcamp

The "Goods" bootcamp

Winter has finally arrived, time to dust off the ice axes. I have to admit I’ve been putting it off as much as I could, the summer has been way too...
December 29, 2011
Cairngorm Lonelies

Cairngorm Lonelies

Before xmas I walked in to Corie an t’Sneachda to try and rope solo a route. It was raining and whiteout then and by the time I got to the base of ...
January 14, 2011
Tomahawk M10+

Tomahawk M10+

You’ve gotta love climbing. And you gotta love Switzerland. Climbing takes you to stunning places that otherwise you wouldn’t know or even bother. ...
March 03, 2011

Warming up for ROCfest

There is just over a week to go before Rock Over Climbing in Manchester put on their annual ROCfest bouldering event. I have not been before, but I...
January 23, 2013

Competition season (so far!!)

This year, the Scottish tooling series was scaled up to a national level with five events spanning the country between the beacon climbing centre i...
January 12, 2015
Magic Woods Road trip

Magic Woods Road trip

Last month I went to Magic Woods with James Garden and Neil Amos. This bouldering mecca is located in Switzerland, close to Chur. Being amidst the ...
August 30, 2012

Competition Time!

For me, the beginning of a new academic year always feels like an extra January 1st, halfway through the year, where I can make a whole new set of ...
October 20, 2014

First time to Hueco limbing in the US

The climbing in Hueco seemed to suite me quite well and the endless dry weather out there means you can formulate a plan of what you want to do in ...
March 03, 2014
Juniors at Font

Juniors at Font

A couple of weeks ago a few members of the junior climbing team made it out to Font. The team experienced sun, snow, rain and sub zero temperatures...
March 03, 2010

Gaining the margins

I can say with confidence that some winter climbs, the ones I went in deep, have fundamentally changed me as person. So recently, whilst climbing i...
November 20, 2014

Slate, sunburn and snacks

There’s a lot of pressure sometimes to do epic stuff every time you get a few days off work, but you don’t have to fly or cycle or run across the w...
July 26, 2018

Himalayan Adventures: Shan-Ri - Part 1

Himalayas 2018 In the last 10 years our Himalayan adventures have been based on mountains off the beaten path, normally virgin peaks or unexplored ...
December 06, 2018

Mountaineering in Bolivia

The first time I set eyes on the snowy spine of the Andes was on a flight to Chile way back in 2003 and have wanted climb in them ever since. Fast-...
March 11, 2019

Ridges through the Sky

There is something truly magical about being up high in the mountains, following the line joining the highest points with the ground dropping away ...
March 02, 2018

Driving and bouldering

A hell of a lot of driving and climbing. Up to Rieff on the North West Coast of Scotland, then back to near Fort William and a second ascent of a D...
May 21, 2014

Ant and The Whale

Dom Bush has been making films for us over the last 4 or more years and what links many of these films is that they are not showy, if anything verg...
November 17, 2018

The Ascent of Nanda Devi

Posted for Vertebrate Publishing - to mark the re-release of H.W. Tilman titles H. W. ‘Bill’ Tilman was one of the greatest adventurers of his time...
December 07, 2016

Senja Frozen Wonderland

I went to Senja by accident really, but being far from on top form, the idea of going somewhere new and adventurous sounded just right. After a bit...
March 04, 2019

Craic and Cracks: part two

There are so many things to love about Canada. It is a progressive, forward-thinking country both socially and politically, it has true wilderness ...
June 12, 2017

A Peruvian Adventure

'Hi Alpkit, My self and two of my friends have just returned from a successful trip from Peru where we managed to summit the mountain of Alpamayo. ...
July 27, 2017

Scottish Winter and a bit of tooling!

I thought it was time I wrote something about the climbing I have done outside, because so far I have only spoken about competitions! The past coup...
February 16, 2015

Cragweek

It's the question that all of us dread: 'so have you been getting out much?' In fact, not all climbers dread this question, just the ones who feel ...
July 13, 2017

Third Time Lucky: Soloing the Aiguille de Moine

Soloing Aiguille de Moine Earlier this year I decided to solo a peak called “Aiguille de Moine” which sits at 3412m within the Mont Blanc Massif.It...
December 18, 2018

A bloody long way North

A bloody long way North Driving from the South of Norway to the North of Norway is like driving from the south of Norway to Italy, it’s a bloody lo...
August 05, 2019

Five thousand metres of vertical joy

At some point during each of my trips to the alps I have always found myself drawn to the Saastal valley. In contrast to the hussel and bussel of C...
August 22, 2018

Sheffield Schools Boulder

The Sheffield Schools bouldering competition is a fun, inclusive competition, offering the chance for a large number of school children to experien...
May 04, 2022

Climbing in Santa Luzia Walls

Thanks to our wonderful friends and Alpkiteers, Daniela and Paulo, who sent us this story of climbing in Santa Luzia Walls. It was the year.well, I...
November 24, 2022

What Motivates Me To Climb | Part 1

Introducing one of our Alpkiteers, Kumbi Kariwo. She doesn't climb to be the best. She climbs to be her best. Here's how her journey started, what ...
January 04, 2023

Back in 5 Gone Climbing

Branching off from the wide forest track, we begin to weave our way up the hill through a maze of rounded sandstone boulders. Soon, the peaceful so...
May 15, 2025

The Grit List - An ode to friction

The changing of the season has me rubbing my hands together in anticipation for the return of perfect gritstone conditions (it’s not just to keep m...
October 22, 2024

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