Pyrenees - Cavallers

After a fantastic trip to the UK we're now back in Spain. Keen to enjoy the remainder of our summer holiday we headed up to our trusty favourite area, the Aiguestortes National Park. We spent best part of a week climbing both around and above the Cavallers Dam - a pleasant shock to the system after so long away from the rock!

Walking in under ominous skies... actually our second attempt that afternoon due to showers!

Getting higher despite a very heavy bag full of climbing and camping gear!

Morning reflections over the lake...

Climbers in the morning sun

Another vivid marsh orchid!

Checking out the guidebook! (And yes, I am wearing shorts over thermal tights. I forgot my trousers)

Refugi Ventosa i Cavell (2220m)

More clusters of photogenic marsh orchids! Ali had to stand in many a bog in pursuit of the perfect shot!

Some randoms climbing above the refuge (El Santuri)

Teetering on the amazing arete (Clara Luna 6c). Not a badly positioned route even if I couldn't actually climb it!

Trying not to fall in!

A little hug on the way back down to our campsite

Walking back up the hill for another day climbing by the refuge!

Testing my balance skills (and hoping the tree didn't break).

Playing with the polariser!

Gotcha! Marmots were easy enough to spot but didn't seem to like having their photo taken... not without a huge telephoto lens anyway. We don't have one of these (yet?!).

Enjoying some granite slab climbing on Paret del Negre

Not a bad camping spot! (even if a lot of the climbing is way up the big hill in the distance!)

Ali gets up in the small hours to capture the star trails... the skies are pretty amazing up here! 

Hello Ali! The closest you get to a photo of him these days...

Bearded French dude slab-padding above the Cavallers Dam. Nice moustache.

Some more lovely mountain flowers...

Feeling smug but knackered after an hour's slog up to this point... actually just the start of our climbing objective, a 6 pitch route up this granite wall (Comalestorres for any interested climbing geeks). I like the way this lens lengthens my legs! 

Made it. View from the top of Comalestorres...

More mountain flowers... so pretty!

Back to the car in the nick of time as a HUGE thunderstorm hits the mountains. Wouldn't want to be climbing now!

From the furnace into the freezer...

Last weekend's short evening bouldering session whet my appetite and reminded me how nice it can be to simplify climbing to its purest form sometimes. No ropes, no gear, no belaying, no faff, no stress! So with the promise of cooler temperatures up in the Pyrenees yet again we returned to Cavallers this weekend. Friday night saw yet another serious accident on the N240 Reus - Lleida road in EXACTLY the same place as last Friday. Last week it was a car that managed to end up on its roof and this Friday a full head-on collision. Is it just coincidence that it happens at the junction where the group of prostitutes wait for business - people rubber necking - or is it a bad junction? Either way, it's the third serious accident we've seen on that same stretch of road in the last six times of driving it. Why are the Spanish such terrible and impatient drivers?!

We arrived at Cavallers on Friday evening to snow showers, and Saturday morning they continued. We'd hoped it'd be cooler up there, but not snowing!! Thankfully, a few cups of tea and some porridge later the sun came out and it warmed up to pretty ideal bouldering conditions. Cool and with good friction but not too hot in the sun. And it remained that way for the rest of the weekend :-) We did loads of amazing problems - most of which I have no idea of the name or grade - but it was just nice to explore the valley and climb whatever looked good, until skin and muscles couldn't take any more - a bit like the first time I went to Font!

Here's a selection of some of the highlights:-

Recent snowfall on the tops and a bitterly cold wind...

...nice easy wall...

...very good highball arete with a tricky start...

[the highball arete climbed on its right-hand side]

...nice problem down by the river...grade unknown...

'Golden Gay' - cool traverse given font 7b+ in some videos and 7a+ in others - more like 6c+!

Tash happy to have topped out - really nice sit-start on right arete

Tash getting harassed by the horses while trying to boulder! They liked nibbling the mat!

Really aesthetic slopey arete problem in the meadow - given font 7a+/b in one video.

Very satisfying latching the final slopey boss hold

...more unknown problems...

Fun 6c dyno from awkward crouch-start

The highlight of the weekend was this amazing steep nose/prow hidden among the scree above the road. 'X men' - given font 7a+

...a great way to top off a fantastic weekend!

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!

Sweet looking slopey arete - too hot to try on Saturday evening in full sun. One to come back for.

Some more nice aretes...

...and a few steep sit-starts...

...nice roof problem...

...and a couple of highball wall climbs...

....and that's just scratching the surface on a 5min walk around.