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Learn to Lead

The week you stop top roping.

Six days climbing in Lleida, one of the most famous climbing regions in the world. You'll spend seven nights in a beautiful villa with a small group of climbers who are all there for the same reason... to learn how to become independent climbers at the crag — clipping, falling, belaying, anchor cleaning and reading a route from the ground.

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What you'll learn

  • Clipping technique
  • Falling
  • Belaying a leader
  • Route reading from the ground
  • Cleaning and lowering off safely
  • Assessing fixed gear
  • Onsighting and projecting
  • Climbing technique

Nobody is going to make you lead before you want to. Plenty of people arrive intending to lead everything and spend two days top-roping first, and that's perfectly normal. The week bends around where you actually are, not where the itinerary says you should be.

Who this is for

Climbers who already feel confident climbing indoors on boulders, auto-belays or top-rope. If you've tried leading a couple of times but still find it very intimidating that's also great. No outdoor experience needed at all.

What you leave with

Six days of climbing on some of the best limestone in the world, enough knowledge to make you completely independent at the crag and a bunch of new climbing partners.

Accommodation

The Farmhouse

Santa Engràcia is a small stone village on a rocky shoulder above the Tremp valley, in the Pallars Jussà, with the long wall of the Montsec across the skyline. The limestone of Terradets is a short drive down the valley, and the crags around Vilanova de Meià and Camarasa are an easy morning away — which is the whole point: hundreds of well-bolted routes at the grades you will actually be leading on, rather than a famous crag where everything starts hard.

We take the whole of The Farmhouse for the week — a three-floor stone house with the kitchen and a long dining table on the middle floor, three bedrooms and two bathrooms below, and an arched door out to a private terrace looking straight down the valley. There is a pellet stove for November evenings and electric blankets on the beds. One quirk worth knowing before you arrive: the village streets are too narrow for cars, so the last two hundred metres from the car park are on foot.

This house: Wifi · Washing machine · Pellet stove · Private terrace · Barbecue

The living room, with an arched door standing open onto the terrace and the valley beyond.
The shared courtyard under a vine, with the village church tower behind it.
The dining table under the wooden ceiling, laid for the group.
The kitchen, with the oven set into an old stone fireplace.
One of the two double bedrooms, an iron bed against a bare stone wall.
The bunk room, two sets of bunks either side of a shuttered window.
The front of the house, vines along the wall and a table out in the courtyard.
The view from the village out over the Tremp valley, the church at the edge of the drop.
Santa Engràcia on its rocky outcrop, the houses stacked along the shoulder.

What the accommodation is like

Your own bed, always

Rooms are shared but nobody shares a bed.

Bedding and towels provided

Both are there when you arrive so no need to pack the micro-fibre.

The kitchen is yours

A proper kitchen with a long table beside it, for packed lunches in the morning and late tea when everyone has stopped talking about the day.

Breakfast and dinner

Both will be cooked/prepared for you every day.

Want a private room?

Ask as early as you can and we will see what the house allows — no guarantees.

Coming as a couple?

Let us know when you book and we'll do our best to get you a private double room. No guarantees.

Inclusions & exclusions

Included

The week is close to all-inclusive once you land:

  • Airport transfer from Barcelona, both ways — pick up at 17:00 on Saturday 7th and drop off at 12:00 on Saturday 14th
  • Accommodation for the week, in the house we take over entirely
  • Breakfast and dinner, every day
  • All the guiding and the coaching
  • Ropes, quickdraws, helmets and harnesses
  • Lifts to the crag and back, every climbing day

Not included

Only a few things stay yours:

  • Your flights — land at Barcelona in time for the 17:00 pickup. Drop off at the airport on the way back at 12:00
  • A packed lunch for the crag each day
  • Climbing shoes, and a chalk bag if you use one
  • Anything you fancy drinking that isn't water

Good questions

It is the opposite of a problem - it is who the week is for. What matters is that you are comfortable moving on a rope or auto-belay indoors. We start small, on easy routes, with the rope above you, and we move at whatever speed is right for you. Some people are leading by Tuesday. Some are leading on Friday. Everyone has their own process.
There is enough rock within half an hour, facing enough directions, that a bad forecast usually means a different crag rather than a day indoors. Nonetheless, a day is never written off and there's always something we can be working on while the rain passes.
The opposite — solo climbers are the heart of these weeks. You arrive knowing nobody and leave with a phone full of belay partners; that’s not a side effect, it’s half the product. Groups of friends are just as welcome, and in our experience the two mix within about one dinner.
First off, use the enquiry form on this page to let us know you’re interested in joining the trip. Once we’ve worked out if it’s a good fit for you, a deposit holds your spot, and the balance is due upon arrival. Cancel more than 30 days out and the deposit comes back in full. Inside 30 days it stays — by then the house is booked, the transfers are arranged, and the week is being built around a group that includes you.