Tash's Blog: Escaping the heat in Cavallers: Pristine granite paradise

The temperatures were set to remain high in the Tarragona area this weekend. High twenties / low thirties might be nice as a novelty in the UK but when it's every single day here it gets a bit overbearing - especially when you want to go climbing! So we decided to head up to the Pyrenees to get away from the heat and humidity and Friday night saw us driving up to Cavallers. Stepping out of the car at 1,800m when we got there it was so nice to have to put on a jumper for the first time since we left the UK! Strange thing to say, but it's true!

Saturday morning we were up early and super-psyched to get going in the refreshingly cool temperatures. After warming up at Plaka Tuka, where we did a bunch of superb 6b+ to 6c+ routes, we then moved down the incredible Pared Inerte. This is easily one of the best wall single pitch walls in Cavallers, with routes up to 45m long following perfect flakes and cracks on immaculate granite! Unfortunately as were so psyched to climb I didn't manage to get many photos!

Tash pulling the ropes at Plaka Tuka - the only photo from the roped climbing we did!

After we'd done loads of routes here and it started to cool down I wanted to check out some of the boulders lower down the valley. Although I've been to Cavallers plenty of times before I've never done any bouldering here and was really surprised at how good it was! Well worth a visit just for the bouldering alone - add that to the incredible single and multi-pitch sport climbing around the dam, multi-pitch trad climbing higher up the valley, and an all round stunning place to be this makes it one of my all time favourite venues!

Some of the easy access bouldering in the valley bottom.

Brilliant arete problem - will have to come back with more skin for the sit-start.

Shade chasing.

Great left to right heel-hooking lip traverse...

...then cool mantle at the end.

Leaves turning in the valley.

Sunday we bush-whacked up the steep valley side to another amazing slab - La Conchinchina - with some more brilliant long routes. Here I did a couple of sandbag 6b's and then was pleased to onsight a very thin and technical 7a+ ('Chancletisme extreme'). With fingertips now screaming from pulling on all the crystal crimps and the bouldering session the previous night we went down to a much steeper sector - La Pasteleria - where pumpy laybacks and jamming cracks were the order of the day, to give the tips a bit of a rest. The first route I got on here ('Comete un rosco') gets 6c+ in the old guide. I thought it felt a bit hard for this, especially at the crux where you have to paste your feet on smears and use a couple of terrible undercuts to move across rightwards. But the way I'm climbing at the moment (i.e. badly!) it could quite easily have been 6a for all I know [turns out that due to the loss of a key hold it's now 7b, which I was quite pleased with! - I probably wouldn't have got on it if I'd known it was harder than 6c+]. The next route ('Dulces fisuras') was a great rising traverse up some slanting cracks, and despite being 7a it's no surprise that it felt way easier than the 7b masquerading as a '6c+'. I finished off with a pleasant wide 6b jamming crack, very reminiscent of a grit route. Too tired and with too little skin left to contemplate bouldering tonight, we headed back to camp for a nice cold beer :-)

Monday morning was spent just checking out some more bouldering sectors lower down the valley, before it was time to leave for work. There really is a lot of bouldering here - and that's without searching out any boulders further than ~10m from the road! I'm psyched to get the new Cavallers guide and check out what's what...there might even be chance for one last trip up there this year before the weather turns colder!