Did Climbing Just Get Banned at Oliana? Here’s What We Know.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

On December 16, the Catalonian Department of Culture quietly announced new access restrictions for the Rumbau cliff at Oliana, one of the world’s most renowned and historic crags for hard sport climbing. “Sporting activities involving climbing, camping and lighting fires are prohibited in the archaeological zone,” read the text of the new rule, which took effect on December 18.

According to the announcement, “no objections” were submitted during the process, which did not involve local authorities or any climbing organizations.

Climbers across the world reeled from the immediate threat to some of the world’s best sport climbing. “This does not only mean the loss of another climbing site, but a loss of climbing history,” says Chris Frick, an elite Swiss climber who spent his winter of 2023 helping restore Oliana’s beloved routes from a brutal wildfire. “Imagine that the Louvre museum in Paris got banned. You would still have the historical paintings like the Mona Lisa as photos. But having these climbs only documented in history books doesn’t help.”

But according to climbers in Oliana, local officials aren’t complying with the Department of Culture’s new rule. French-Icelandic sport climber Svana Bjarnason, who climbed at Rumbau today, says that local officials and the police are both allowing climbers to continue to access the routes.

“The document bans rock climbing in the ‘archeological area,’ which could be interpreted as the area that’s already protected at the crag and where no one climbs,” she told Climbing, adding that the mayor has started an appeal process.

Until further clarification by the Catalonian government, climbers are continuing to access the cliff.

Climbers blamed for fire damage?

Up until now, the main Rumbau buttress, which hosts at least 87 bolted routes, has been the site of decades of historic climbing achievements. This includes the 2009-2013 struggle between Adam Ondra and Chris Sharma to send La Dura Dura (5.15c), then the hardest sport climb in the world. Four years ago, Janja Garnbret made history in Peramola by becoming the first woman to onsight 5.14b, doing it twice on both Fish Eye and American Hustle. This past July, nine-year-old Veronica Chik became the youngest person in history to send 5.14b, also on Fish Eye.

In 2022, a 300-acre wildfire broke out from a harvesting machine in a nearby grain field. Flames burned the left side of the cliff, wrecking several holds, bolts, and perma-draws. A GoFundMe launched by Bjarnason raised more than $5,000 to restore the damaged lines.

This wildfire may have set off alarms for government conservationists. According to Nicolas Durand, a Catalonia-based guide, representatives of the Department of Culture visited the rock art sites in late October 2023 and observed the damage from the fire.

“Climbers were initially blamed, incorrectly, even though the damage was in fact the direct result of the fire and a lack of maintenance by the responsible authorities,” Durand wrote on his Instagram. He added that the agents also objected to a path that volunteers had created to help remove burnt trees and a dry compost toilet. The toilet was removed, he says, and natural regrowth has since covered the track.

“There have been no degradation of the paintings caused by climbing,” he insisted. “No allegations have been made against climbers.” Climbing was unable to verify these claims.

Until now, an invisible threat

Since 1993, the government of Catalonia has classified all sites containing rock paintings as Cultural Asset of National Interest, including the Roc del Rumbau. In 1998, UNESCO additionally classified the Roc del Rumbau cave paintings, among 700 other examples of rock art on the Ibrerian peninsula, as World Heritage Sites.

But until last year, there was no documented push to restrict public access to the climbing routes along the cliffs. Durand, for one, says that climbers have coexisted with the prehistoric paintings for decades. In a December 20 Instagram post, he wrote that back in 2014, climbers even removed the start of certain routes and installed a 6×6-meter protective cage around some rock paintings. “From that point onward, and until recently, no known conflict existed between climbing activity and the preservation of the rock art.”

On March 12, 2024, four months after its representatives observed the fire damage at Rumbau, the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage for Catalonia recommended that a new protection zone be established to protect the rock at the Rumbau cliff. It is unknown whether this recommendation was made public or delivered as a private correspondence to Natàlia Garriga, then the Minister for Culture of Catalonia. But in any sense, the climbing community had no idea.

On July 17, 2025, the new Minister for Culture, led by Sònia Hernàndez Almodóvar, published an announcement that they would begin the process of closing off public access to Rumbau. According to the memo, the Peramola City Council, which oversees Oliana, was notified that any construction or demolition permits within the affected site would be suspended starting on September 30. Climbing was unable to confirm whether the City Council received this notification, and if so, whether they were aware that a ban on all access, not just construction projects, was forthcoming. But the public electronic bulletin for Peramola contained no reference to the upcoming climbing ban.

If climbers had known about the threat to Oliana climbing, whether through Peramola’s local government or by finding it on the Catalonian government notice board, they might have been able to prevent this new policy from moving forward. Almodóvar’s July 17 announcement opened a one-month period of public consultation, during which climbers could have made in-person appointments at the Barcelona-based Department of Cultural Heritage or the regional Department of Culture in Lleida to advocate against the ban.

 

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