Provence Climbing Retreat

About half of our of climbers come to our retreats alone. Often we do have groups of friends who sign up together, and we also have couples pretty often, but we also have a lot of people just come by themselves looking to meet people and make new friends. If you are hesitating to join because you would be coming solo, please know that we expect a lot of our participants to be joining by themselves.

We generally have a wide range of ages at our retreats. The average tends to fall  between the ages of 25 and 45, but we have had quite a few climbers in their 60's join as well. It really is up to the attitude and physical ability of the participant.

You do not need to be an experienced climber to attend, but we recommend some climbing experience before signing up for a week of climbing. We recommend that everyone attending is able to top-rope a 5.9 in a climbing gym without taking or falling. While climbing 5.9 in a climbing gym is different than climbing a 5.9 outside, having the ability to climb 5.9 in the gym will set you up to have a great time in Cassis. 

No sweat. Our guides are all world-class instructors and will be happy to show you the ropes (pun intended). In all seriousness though, you do not need any mulitpitch experience whatsoever to enjoy multipitch climbs on this retreat. We'll teach you everything you need to know, and all you need to do is come willing to learn.

Probably! Lead climbing is certainly not a requirement for anybody on the trip, but we're happy to let you lead on single-pitch routes as long as you can pass a belay test similar to those found in most gyms (minus the falling). Our main goal is to keep everyone safe, so on our first day out together we’ll want to see that everyone is able to manage the rope, communicate, lead and belay safely before being cleared to do it throughout the week. If you haven't led yet but you'd like to work on lead skills throughout the week, we'll try our best to help but our priority to is to make sure everyone gets to climb as much as they want. If you don’t plan on leading, we’ll still ask you to go through a quick belay test to make sure you’re good to go belaying those who are. 

The food offerings in Cassis are eclectic and international enough that you shouldn't have any trouble. We'll have a breakfast buffet at the hotel in the mornings and be at nice restaurants for the few nights we eat out together too, and we'll do our best to make sure you're taken care of. Traditional Provencal food does involves a lot of meat, seafood and dairy, but we've had celiacs, vegans and vegetarians come on our trips in the past and they did just fine. Vegetarian options are widely available, and vegans may just find navigating the French love of meat and dairy to take a little extra effort. 

 If the trip fills, we'll have 18 climbers and 6 guides. Our daily single-pitch groups will consist of 4-5 climbers per guide, letting us have our ropes on 2-3 routes at a time. Each day 3 guides will also take groups of 2 climbers each out multipitch climbing. 

Our trips are 90% women. Men are perfectly welcome, but they tend to be outnumbered, making even these mixed gender trips a very woman-centric space. Our guide team will also predominantly be made up of women.

Summery and nice! Temperatures should be warm enough to enjoy the beach, yet cool enough in the shade to be good for climbing. You can expect highs in the 70's and 80's most days, with nights dipping down into the 60's. The average highs in June are 79°F, and June is a dry month in the area with only a few days of rain most years. Of course we can never promise the weather will be perfect, but June is a great time to be in Cassis.  

You've got options. The easiest way is fly into the international airport at Marseille (about an hour west of Cassis) and to book a group shuttle with other participants. We'll help you coordinate on that one, and it's pretty easy and affordable. You can also rent a car and drive the 50 minutes to Cassis, take a taxi for about €100-150, or combine trains and buses to get to Cassis inexpensively from just about anywhere in France. We'll also help connect everyone who wants to prior to the trip to coordinate on travel arrangements.

We have two types of payment plans available. 

Payment Plan 1 (Two Payments): This plan requires a 50% deposit, of which 10% of the total cost of the trip is non-refundable. Apply the discount code "retreatdeposit" at checkout. Full payment will be required three  months prior to the retreat start date. 

Payment Plan 2 (Monthly Payments): 

This option is only available if the retreat is 5 or more months away. This plan requires a 10% deposit, of which 10% of the total cost of the trip  is non-refundable. Apply the discount code "paymentplan" at checkout to take advantage of this option. We will split the remaining payment into subsequent monthly payments. Full payment will be required two months prior to the retreat start date. We charge $50 to utilize this option as it requires much more work for our team to manage. 

All payment plan invoices must be paid on time.  Invoices that are more than 14 days overdue are subject to cancellation.  We will make every attempt to get in touch regarding overdue payments before cancellation, but we cannot hold spots for guests who are not continuing to pay for their trip. 

We have a very strict cancellation policy. Please review it before committing to this retreat. We HIGHLY recommend purchasing trip protection as we will not modify our cancellation policy under any circumstances.

We strongly recommend purchasing “cancel for any reason” trip insurance to protect your investment.  This must be done within two weeks from the date of registration.  Ripcord and travelX are two companies that we recommend as well as the companies in THIS article.