The bad weather breaks...

After a few weeks of pretty mixed weather, where we had to make the most of dry days between rain instead of planning rest days for the less sunny days as is more usual here, the weather finally seems to have settled. It reminded me of the many damp days snatched between periods of extended rain that used to frustrate me in the UK, and I didn't like it!

Anyway, the first day out last week, Wednesday, we actually left a perfect sunny Montbrio and drove up the hill and ended up in the lingering mist at Arboli. With it being a shorter day we went to the roadside crags of Can Simiro and Can Mansa. Despite it being in the clag the rock was dry and temperatures were good for climbing - not exactly 'sticky damp', but not bad conditions.

I ticked off the remaining decent climbs here, including:

A qui ejaculada, deu ajuda 7a

Els impresentables (variant) 7b+

Poker d'alho 7b+

Alambrado sea dios 7b+

L'avi 7b+

Can Simiro in the mist.

Thursday we went up to Siurana and returned to Grau de la Covassa, where the rock elsewhere was a lot drier - as you can see in the photo of Herbolari below - but surprisingly the rock around the cave where we were was quite damp.

Sector Herbolari - drier than last week.

After warming up on a good but run out 6b+ I did a fantastic 7c (Crosta Daurada) and then surprised myself by ticking Via del Cugat (7c+) which I'd been on last week, despite a lot of the 'salty' holds in the roof being very wet. A great route at a nice esoteric sector. [I've since heard from Pete that on this same day there were 28 cars parked at the Fontscaldes parking areas - where you access the popular crags like El Pati, Primavera, Siuranella etc from - and we were the only ones climbing at our sector!]

Grau de la Covassa - well worth a visit! Both these routes are amazing. 

Hijacked: Team Psyche hit the esoterica!

The original plan for today was to meet Dave, Paul & Sarah up at El Falcó. But having climbed virtually every route on the main face and fearing the weekend crowds I thought I'd treat the visitors to some local esoterica instead ;-)

So we ended up at a different Arbolí sector - Forat del Serratell. This place I'd checked out quite a long time ago but had never actually climbed at. Today was the day.

Energy levels were high; you could just smell the psyche.



A hive of activity. Dave in particular was raving about the place. In fact, he only managed the one route - this crag has that intimidation factor so rare on 15m high cliffs.

Seriously though, the crag was actually much better than first impressions suggested and well worth a day.
Tash here on one of many attempts at the starting moves of a brilliant 6c 'Grüner herbst'.

Dutch climber Jorgus van Daamieenan on the highly praised 'Harissa' (7a).

I was on a mission to climb every half-decent route at the crag and succeeded with all the onsights up to 7b - the highlight of these was the above route 'Harissa'. The rock on the two harder routes at the crag (both 7c) didn't lend itself to on-sighting very well, being completely chalkless and very complex with loads of small holds all over the place. After a short-lived on-sight go at one of them (falling off the crux trying to use the obvious-looking two-finger pocket that turned out to be worse than the half-pad mono just next to it that you actually had to pull on!), I managed it 2nd go. I got on the other 7c right at the end of the day when I was tired. This one felt even harder, with loads of quite powerful moves off small painful pockets, sidepulls and crimps. I worked out the sequence but was too tired for a redpoint. Not sure I'd go back to the crag just for this route, but maybe if I'm passing. Good to climb at another new sector though.





Poc a poc as the locals say...

Well there were no miracles overnight in terms of strength gains or Tash's back recovering but bit by bit we're starting to get back into the groove. Today we went to a few of the Arboli crags - first Can Mansa to warm up on a 6b, and I also managed to scrape my way up a 7a which I was quite pleased with!

Next we moved on to L'Obaga - a north facing crag overlooking Siurana village. We'd actually been here once before on one of Tash's first ever visits out to see me when we were 'courting'. Back then I was going a lot better and I'd ticked some of the best lines of the crag, but there were more decent routes to be found today (including a brilliant 6c+) and I also spied a few harder things to come back for.

Rest day tomorrow then some boulder crushing on Wed methinks...poc a poc we'll get fitter...





View out from L'Obaga over Siurana village, a very low reservoir and across to Cornudella and Montsant

Scoping out some trad lines at El Falcó...

After a good morning ticking some more of the amazing routes at El Falcó I finally checked out the hugely underdeveloped wall round the corner (the glaringly obvious one you always look at across the valley from Siurana). The highlight of the routes I did this morning was 'Tu pa los pollos moreno' (7b), which has to be a contender for the best route at El Falcó. And considering how good pretty much every route is there that's really saying something! It's such a shame that there aren't more routes on this wall, as I've almost done them all now.

The amazing wall of El Falcó - home to 45m wall climbs, each one a classic.

So after ticking the remaining routes on the wall I decided to have a look round the corner to find some potential for the future. It turned out to be a mixed bag, with a few incredible looking sport routes (in particular a perfect 7b+ crack line, another 8a wall climb and some ongoing project lines), plus some fairly average ones, but also a few trad lines!! There was one perfect 6a flake line, then another 7a crack/groove with some in-situ pegs, plus another 7a+ groove line completely free of in-situ gear! All of them 30m routes, and all will be 3* classic single pitch trad routes. That I can tell without leaving the floor. I have to say, I'm slightly concerned about jumping on them as I imagine they're unlikely to have had many ascents at all so will undoubtedly be filthy. Plus trad gear in dirty and slightly friable limestone is never confidence inspiring, so we'll have to see...

The very underdeveloped wall around the corner from the usual El Falcó crag.

Bouldering & cave paintings?!....in Arbolí?!

Well....not exactly!

After the torrential rain all day Friday and a poor forecast for Saturday we decided to buy a new coffee pot and resign ourselves to a day of mooching and watching films. Unfortunately the coffee pot didn't work (damn Chinos!!), and it didn't even rain a drop all day :-(  But after so much rain the day before and a better forecast for Sunday we settled on convincing ourselves that everything would be wet and we'd be better off inside. During the afternoon I also had to convince myself that what I saw out of the window WASN'T blue sky. They'd forecast rain so how could it be blue sky? Best not to look outside.

On Sunday morning I obviously regretted this decision, as the cloud was back and hanging low over the hills. It wasn't raining, but it was cold and very grey. We decided to head out anyway, but changed the original plan of Margalef or Raco de Missa in favour of somewhere closer.

Destination today: Arbolí - and the sectors around the Ermita de Sant Pau.

The not very picturesque 'Ermita de Sant Pau', Arbolí - complete with a yapping ankle-biter guard dog.



Overlooking Arbolí village. It was pretty grim on first arrival...and stayed that way all day!



This is, again, somewhere that I've never been so thought it'd be a good day to try it out - if it turned out to be rubbish then no great loss.



The crags were easy enough to find, but unfortunately not the most inspiring. Pretty short (15m) and vaguely reminiscent of somewhere like Horseshoe quarry in the peak, only natural. The routes actually turned out to be better than they first appeared, with some interesting moves, and the rock was very solid, if a little damp today. It was hard to get warm and then stay warm with the really cold, damp air that was around, but we managed to get plenty of climbing done. I on-sighted five 7a or 7a+ routes, despite not being able to feel my fingers once. I had to resort to redpointing another 7a+ though after getting a ridiculous cold pump about 4m off the floor!


Tash managed to on-sight the worst looking 6b in the world and redpoint a nice 6c with "icy sausage fingers", so a good day for her too.




After we got tired of fighting the battle to stay warm we went to check out where some guys had appeared from earlier in the day with a Black Diamond Mondo pad. I'd forgotten that a new bouldering guide to the Prades area has been published - must check it out some time. Anyway we had a quick look around and found some half decent looking problems. It's not Fontainebleau by any stretch of the imagination, but worth a day or two!




Nice looking traverse line.




Very good looking problem on small crimps up the overhanging wall.

 

The other highlight of the day was finding these neolithic cave paintings under one section of the crag...amazing that even back then they were climbing hard!





Cave painting man climbs F9b+

We ended the day with a scout around some of the other crags in the area to see if they were worth coming back for. For future reference:

El Cremat - no.

Forat del Serratell - yes.

El Duc - half day?

So despite the crappy weather it ended up being quite a productive day. On-sight mileage, tour of a new bouldering area and some potential new crags as well as taking in some culture with a bit of prehistoric art!

Temperature plummets 15° in a week!!!

Saturday

On Tuesday this week I was climbing with no top on and worried about it getting too hot. Today it was -1° on leaving the house and -4° driving up the hill. Originally we were planning to go up to Raco de Missa (Montsant) but as soon as we got outside and hit the icy air it was clear this would have been a mistake (despite it being glorious wall to wall sunshine). So a quick change of plan and we were on our way to Siurana instead, in search of a sheltered suntrap.

Destination: Two sectors that I hadn't been to before called Can Parasit and La Planxa ("the iron" - see pic to see why it's called this!) for a day of easy on-sight mileage. First stop Can Parasit on a mission to tick the crag between us. I did all the routes 6c+ and above, and Tash (tried) to do the sub-6c routes. She started well, on-sighting a 6a and 6a+ but got shut down right at the very end of an awesome 6b+ where the wall steepened up. We then moved on to La Planxa where I did a very nice short but explosive 7b+ and a 7a+ rising traverse along the edge of the boulder. I was quite pleased with the 7b+ on-sight, as there was no chalk to follow and the pockets were quite dirty - which makes a big difference on something so short and bouldery.

'Intercity' (F7b+) on the La Planxa block at Siurana. Well named - it means 'the iron'!

Some Spanish girl climbing 'El tiempo se ha reido de los que no han venido' (F6c) as we were walking back to the car.

We bumped into Mac & Holly walking back to the car so went for a brew in their van to catch up and end a very nice sunny but cold day.

Routes ticked:-

Cara Estaca 7a

El pupes 7a

Montazer al Zaidi 6c+

Ma mola molt 6c+

Libertarias 7a

Mr. Muss 7a

El caganer del ruc 7a

Kagarro malababa 6b+

Intercity 7b+

Tupac Amaru 7a+

Sunday
Today we went to another new sector; this time one of the Arboli crags called Mas d'en Rei. It was bitterly cold again walking in (despite blue skies) thanks to an icy wind.

Tash walking in along the ridge with great views down to Reus and the coast.

After walking around in circles for a while at the old farmhouse trying to find the path dropping down, we finally found the right one and headed down into the trees. It's always a bit worrying going to brand new sectors like this when you can't see the place until you arrive, especially when there's a bit of a walk in. When we arrived at the start of the crag we were a little disappointed to say the least. The rock was a bit vegetated, dirty and broken and none of the best looking lines were bolted. Plus it wasn't very sheltered so it felt damn cold, even in the sun.

Tash underneath the left-hand side of the crag - it looks better in this photo than it actually was!

So we were pretty close to just opting for a token route and then leaving. But there was one more little sector hidden round the corner, separate from the rest, which held a glimmer of hope. After a bit of bush-whacking through some pretty nasty brambles we arrived at what looked like an outcast from Siurana - a small but awesome looking wall with some really nice clean lines up it. And to top it off, it was a total suntrap - perfect! I warmed up on a good, steep, but slightly dirty sandbag 7a crack - it felt like very hard work to start the day with and I got a bit more pumped than I'd have liked (but things always feel a grade or two harder with no chalk or tickmarks, and when the rock's a bit dirty) I left the rope up for Tash to top-rope on for the rest of the day - she had quite a few goes up it but it was a little too steep and bouldery for her, although she got pretty pumped trying!

Next up was a fantastic 7b up the centre of the wall. Brilliant thin cracks and flakes linking between some horizontal breaks - really nice climbing, and I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the rock was, given how little traffic this crag obviously gets (we didn't see a single person the whole day and there was no chalk on any of the routes!) Then came another brilliant 7b+ on the extreme right of the wall, starting with some nice technical vert climbing leading to a steeper wall and finishing up a perfect jamming crack! The final route turned out to be another total sandbag. I tried for the O/S, but after going up and down at the crux a dozen times I just couldn't figure out how to do it and sagged onto the rope. It's either lost a hold or two, or it's badly graded. Even after the low crux moves, which felt desperate once I'd actually worked out the best way, it wasn't all over. But the route was such good quality that I was psyched to give it another go, despite feeling pretty tired by this point. After a rest belaying Tash, I managed to redpoint it first go (although it was a bit of a fight at the second crux). It felt like hard and bouldery 7c, but it's difficult to tell when there's no chalk and the rock's dusty. Equally, I could have just been more tired than I thought - who knows?

By now we were both knackered and the late afternoon sunshine was starting to go off the wall so we headed home for thai curry & christmas cake :-)

Lazing in the sunshine between routes (the best bit of the crag is just round the corner out of sight)

El Dard in the mist

The temperature has dropped a bit since we were out on Tuesday and, although today it was sunny at home down on the coast, driving up past Alforja it became more and more misty. We decided to stick to the coast side of the hills to avoid the mist as much as possible, but the crags were still clouded when we arrived.



El Dard in the mist on arrival



We went to one of the most overlooked gems in the area - El Dard. Most people who visit here only climb at the big three spots - Siurana, Margalef and Montsant - plus maybe a cursory visit to El Falco for a day. Although El Dard is classed as an Arboli crag, it's actually nowhere near the village itself and you drive past it every time you go from Reus to Cornudella to get to the 'big three'. It took me over a year after moving to finally make it here and climb the classic 7c crackline of 'El Marginao' (this is a must-do route and worth a visit to the crag just for it). Today I wanted to try another of the routes on the main wall which follows a slanting crackline running parallel to El Marginao but slightly to its left. After a quick warm-up on a 6c+ my fingers were still too cold to contemplate an on-sight but I was impatient to get on it so settled for just putting the draws in and hopefully a quick redpoint.

It turned out to be another amazing route - again, worth a visit just for it. Really nice laybacking up the thin crackline where it was important to slot your hands in with the right sequence and finishing with a high foot and long lock off a sidepull in the crack. As I hoped, it turned out to be quite a straightforward first redpoint and I finished the day on-sighting yet another quality technical 7b called Silverado.

Yarak (F7c+) at sector El Dard, Arboli

Another shot of the same