Los mallos de Riglos (Mallets of Riglos) are 300m red sandstone towers that seem to appear out of nowhere. When taking a closer look, they offer a very unique type of multipitch climbing with long sections of overhang on very good holds, a sharp contrast to more traditional slabby multipitch climbing. Located in the Aragon region of Spain and close to the Pyrenees, the town of Riglos is also very accessible by public transport thanks to a train station located on the Zarragoza-Canfranc train line. It is a trip I recommend for every climber to do at least once in their life.
How to get there
I did the journey Paris - Narbonne - Zaragoza - Riglos but it can also be done as Paris - Barcelona - Zaragoza - Riglos which I used on the way back. The advantage of going through Narbonne is to use a night train, avoiding loosing some day time and saving the cost of a hotel night.
On the way there:
Paris Austerlitz 9:07PM -> Narbonne (10 h 40 min) - night train (make sure to book a bed and not just a seat).
Narbonne 10:39AM -> Zaragoza Delicias 2:22PM (3 h 43 min)
Zaragoza 3:53PM -> Riglos 5:41PM (1 h 48 min)
Total duration is 16h and 11 min of which 10h and 40 min spent sleeping in the night train. The Riglos village can be reached with a short 10 minutes walk from the Riglos train station (and 5 minutes from the Riglos Bus station).
On the way back I chose to travel by day and the journey looked like this:
Riglos 9:24AM -> Zaragoza Delicias 10:53AM (1 h 29 min)
Zaragoza Delicias 11:18AM -> Barcelona Sants 12:45PM (1 h 27 min)
Barcelona Sants 1:25PM -> Paris Gare de Lyon 8:18PM (6 h 53 min)
Total duration is then just 9h and 49 minutes
Important information: at the publication of this travel report, the Canfranc - Zaragoza train line is still being renovated (it was supposed to be back in service in May 2024 but here we are). Hence trains from Zaragoza stop at Huesca and not Riglos. But Renfe has appointed a microbus in Huesca that takes you to Riglos. The timetables indicated above include that. Possibly in the future the trip between Zaragoza and Riglos will be even shorter.
Where to stay
The best is to stay in Riglos where you are 15’ from the start of most routes. I stayed at this house with multiple rooms (€35 / night), but to be fair I would have stayed at the Refugio Riglos (€30 / night including breakfast) if it was not completely full.
To my knowledge there is no camping site in town, the closest one being Armalygal in Murillo de Gallego but it is 11km away from Riglos. Doable if you have a bike.
How to reach the crag(s)
Once in Riglos you can reach the base of all Mallos in a 15’-20’ easy walk which is super convenient.
Tips
There is only one small supermarket in Riglos but it’s not on Google maps. It’s called la Franceza and is located at 1, calle de la Carretera, 50m from the Refugio. Keep in mind that its opening schedule varies a lot (notably it was not opened on Wednesday) so to be on the safe side you probably want to come with a bit of food.
For dinner, breakfast, lunch or just a beer / coffee the Refugio is your place to go with reasonable prices.
Riglos is a small town and to be honest there is not much to do during a rest day apart from sightseeing (nice trails, take the map at the refugio) and the municipal swimming pool (€3.4 for the day) very enjoyable when it’s hot.
Note: if you don’t feel like climbing a multipitch and just want to climb for a couple of hours, there are single pitch routes.
How to book the trip
All train tickets can be bought on the Trainline app, even for the Zaragoza - Riglos leg of the journey. Renfe and SNCF Connect are nice but only let you access the trains from the national train company.
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