After the torrential rain all day yesterday we made a decision not to even try and climb today. Serious amounts of water fell out of the sky over the previous 24 hours, so we figured that instead of heading out with the intention of climbing and being disappointed when everything was wet, we'd go out just to explore some new crags and climb if they were dry. That way it wouldn't be a wasted day either way - can't fault the logic eh?!
I've been meaning to have a look at the crags around Pinell de Brai / Gandesa (about an hour south-west of us) for a while now, so when Pete mentioned the place again recently it reminded me that I needed to go and I thought this would be an ideal opportunity. We drove down there and first went to Pinell de Brai village, as I'd read online that the most up to date topos were kept at a certain bar there. We couldn't find this bar for love nor money, despite there being about six different ones in what was a pretty small village! Even when we asked for it by name they didn't know of its existence, or of a bakery where they were also supposed to keep the topos - so it looked like that was a red herring! Fortunately I'd found a map just with the location of the crags on someone's blog last night, so we drove there and managed to find the crags easily enough. Suffice it to say I was pretty impressed!
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| The sunny Mirador sector. |
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| The Cova sector - home of some amazing looking steep tufa lines (all soaking wet today!) |
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| Looking out from the Cova to the Mirador sector across the valley. |
As we didn't have any information about the routes we decided not to climb, plus most of the good looking routes were wet today, but it was definitely good enough to warrant a return visit, especially as the best crags were shaded all morning so it'll be good for when it wams up. It still amazes me how many crags there are within the immediate area that I haven't even been to!
After checking out all the sectors in the area we drove over to a place called Fontcalda, which Tash had seen last night when we were trying to find info about the climbing and thought looked nice. The tiny road to get there was pretty spectacular, following the top of a long ridge before dropping down into the bottom of the valley where there was a deep gorge.
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| The awesome scenery on the drive to Fontcalda. |
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| The gorge at Fontcalda - plenty of muddy water in it after yesterday's rain! Will be a nice swimming spot in the summer when it's a bit clearer ;-) |
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| The overflowing gorge at Fontcalda - note the bannister on the right! |
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| The Santuari i Balneari de la Fontcalda through the gorge. |
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| Apparently there's a natural hot spring around here somewhere - it was overflowing with plenty of cold & muddy stuff today though! |
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Via Verde (disused railway line turned into a cycle path) which passes through Fontcalda.
I'm pretty keen to cycle the whole trail in summer - it passes through some pretty awesome places! |
After we'd had a look around the church and gorge at Fontcalda and also the Via Verde, we drove home via Gandesa. And driving through Gandesa what did we see? - the bakery where the topos were supposedly kept! Unfortunately it was closed by now. But when I got home I had another quick look online for the topos for the crags we'd been to today and found them almost immediately! A bit too late for today, but at least I've got them for next time.
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On the drive back to Montbrió we found this across the road.
I've always wondered when these normally dry river beds ever had water in them - after 24 hours solid rain it seems! |
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