Montsant Marathon Part I: El Libro

This week's Montsant marathon began with some low level cloud and a very murky start down in Cornudella. True to form, though, after the walk-in we ended up in bright sunshine looking down on a spectacular sea of cloud in the valley below.

The destination for today was 'El Libro' - a huge open book corner, and one of the most striking and recognisable features along the Montsant range as you drive on the road between Cornudella and Morera far below. This crag has to be among the least frequented of all the Montsant crags, due to its long approach (1hr) and more complicated access, but it is also without doubt THE most spectacularly positioned of them all!

 

Most of the routes start from this very narrow ledge system bisecting the enormous plumb vertical walls of "the book", with a huge drop almost straight down to the road a looong way down - exposure guaranteed!

We started on the right-hand side of the crag, where the routes start from 'relative' terra firma. I say relative because you're still stepping off a ledge hundreds of metres above the valley floor, but the ledge is significantly wider here than further round! I did a 6b+ and 7b here before moving round to the left-hand side where the ledge narrows.

The routes were, on the whole, very good quality. If they were at Raco de Missa or another more classic sector they'd be chalked, clean, and incredibly popular. But as it is, with the more involved approach I wouldn't be surprised if they'd seen only a handful of ascents. And, like with Cogullons last weekend, with it being bird banned for half the year and summer too hot there's only a very short window when it's possible to climb here. As a result the routes felt very 'new', with some scrittly rock and lots of dust/dirt that gets washed down in places from above, giving the rock its characteristic grey and brown streaked appearance.

I had to clean a superb 7a+ crack line (El gordinflon) as I went, including a bit of gardening where the grass had grown back towards the top - right where the crux was! On the way down I cleaned up some holds on a 7c to the right (very much needed!), tick-marked a few holds and tried a few of the moves. After Tash had top-roped the 7a+ I managed to tick my route first go. Another absolute classic on perfect rock. It just needs some more traffic to keep it clean!!!

'La listilla' (F7c) - El Libro, Montsant.
Not exactly a 'redpoint' but I can't claim the onsight either...then again who cares when the climbing & positions are as good as this!

Scrambling over the block on the way out from the crag.

The end of a good Montsant day!