Today we went to a new sector in Siurana (Can Famal) - some might say it's a crag full of sandbags right next to the smelly waste water pipe; others would call it a hidden gem of a crag, a lost paradise - I'm with the second mindset!
So after bashing our way through the overgrown jungle that is the approach path, we made it down past the stinky water pipe and arrived at the shady crag.
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| The approach path! |
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| Can Famal crag in the sun (photo from the guide). |
Thankfully the crag turned out to be pretty good, despite the routes being pretty hard for the grade. We started on a brilliant steep and twisting 6b+ crack ('Stramonium flash') which started off with a bit of an offwidth, then steep bridging and finally some strenuous undercutting and laybacking - classic! I then did a total sandbag of a 7a. A good route, but hard. I finished off with a '7b', or more accurately the '7b' finished me off! It felt as hard as a 7b+ or even 7c at some of the other sectors in Siurana and was a serious fight. After a steep start, there's a bit of easy slab climbing before the wall steepens up again and the route follows a thin slanting crack line which you have to undercut at first then switch over to laybacking - very delicate - and when you get to some good holds and think it's all over then the crux arrives! And even after this there's a hard pull through the final bulge just before the belay! A hidden 3* classic - 'El llangardaix mogut'.
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| Tash just about to set off on another sandbag! |
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| For the flower lovers - roses in bloom in Siurana. |
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