We went back up to the Agulles d'Amitges again the following day, and this time were more successful with completing a route.

Tash just arriving at the belay after the first pitch of 'Marti-Busquets' on the Agulla Gran d'Amitges.

Me on the second pitch - a 45m long mainly bridging and back/footing corner.

Tash seconding the same.

On the top of the Agulla Gran d'Amitges, overlooking the Amitges lake and refuge.

A perfect overhanging splitter crack on the Agulla Petita d'Amitges - still waiting for a free ascent.

Back to base camp for a good old sort...

...and then try and get it all back into the rucksacks!

...before we set off to walk around to the Coma de l'Abeller valley.

Getting lost and frustrated trying to contour round from the main valley into the smaller hanging Coma de l'Abeller valley following the non-existent 'path' over some pretty steep ground. This felt very different and much wilder than the main valley, without a single patch of flat grass anywhere and the only water running well below the glacial scree field and out of reach, despite being able to hear it flowing.

Eventually we made it up to the end of the valley and found our objective - the incredible Caputxi tower, lying among the Agulles de Bassiero. This was by far the best rock I'd seen in the whole of the Amitges area and possibly in the Pyrenees so far. A perfect needle of solid granite, with the impressively steep and blank south face split by a continuous flake crack giving the route 'Deja vu'.

After well over an hour looking for a place to pitch the tent, only finding a tiny bivi shelter hidden among the boulders, I walked 20-30 mins back down the valley and found an idyllic flat grassy spot next to where the water resurfaced - perfect!

Next day the objective was the Gran Tuc de Saboredo and the 'Robi-Genebriera' route.

Despite looking a bit damp, dirty and vegetated at first the route actually turned out to be really good, if a little bold in places. The second (crux) pitch was an amazing 6b diagonal flake crack but ended up being fairly poorly protected towards the top when I ran out of gear (the bottom was wet so I'd placed loads of gear protecting that). Pitch 1 was maybe worth E2 5b - easy but poorly protected - and pitch 2 more like E3 5c. The good climbing continued all the way to the summit ridge until you literally flopped over onto the top - a nice change from yesterday's scramble to the top.

From the top it was an easy walk down the ridge leading us straight to the Agulles d'Amitges.

The west face of the Agulles d'Amitges with the route 'Matador' marked.

The route I wanted to attempt was 'Matador' - a supposed classic of the Agulles. However, after the first pitch - an awesome clean layback crack - I arrived at the crux pitch which turned out to be a 30m long perfectly parallel offwidth crack. After several attempts and reverses, with my only cam big enough to fit the crack now down well below my feet, I decided to sack it off. I maybe should have read the guide before setting off, as it clearly says you need 2 x no3.5 and 3 x no4 camalots. I had a solitary no3!

Anyway, back to camp for cous cous slop...mmmm!

Next morning up bright and early and with the sun shining on our objective for the day - the Agulla Inferior de Crabes.

Porridge breakfast.

A better view of the Agulles de Crabes and our route of the day to the summit of the Agulla Inferior.

Our route 'Caramel' follows the slanting corner/groove all the way to the top.

After crossing a short steep snow patch to get established the climbing was brilliant. This crux pitch (marked as Ao in the guide) was easy enough to free at about E1/2. All clean apart from some poor pegs on the crux.

The actual climbing finishes on the ridge well below the top of the Agulla - leaving a scramble to the summit.

Stunning views from the top across the rest of the Aiguestortes NP.

Then a fairly easy descent down the gully back to the bags.

After a little rest and some lunch we walked round to our next campsite above the Estany de la Munyidera, just below the objective for the following day - the Gran Tuc de Saboredo.

The summer trip begins...

After a bit of a faffy start to the day we finally set off for the Aiguestortes National Park in the Spanish Pyrenees. 4hrs later and we were in Espot preparing our monster bags for the walk-in to the Amitges area.

The mighty bags complete with tent, sleeping stuff, climbing rack, two 60m ropes and 8 days worth of food. Mine was 30kg and Tash's almost 20!

The walk-in started out nice and gently up to the beautiful St Maurici lake.

You can get a 4WD taxi up to this point(!) so the lake was surrounded by smartly dressed picnickers.

St Maurici lake and the 'Enchanted' mountains behind. Thankfully once we left the taxi rank end of the lake the crowds disappeared...

...and we hardly saw anyone for the rest of the day.

After several more hours steep slog we got up to the Estany de Port de Ratera, close to our climbing objective for the following day.

At 2,460m it wasn't a bad place to relax and camp for the night.

Hasta luego...

So at long last the summer term's finished and tomorrow we set off on our jollies :-)

First stop is Aigüestortes National Park in the Pyrenees for some (hopefully) cooler granite climbing then we'll be working our way westward. So don't expect any updates until mid August when we arrive back in the UK. Fingers crossed for six weeks of perfect blue sky days...

There's more to Prades than climbing!!!

After a surprisingly stressful week at work in the form of some "open days" (where the parents of all the kids classes come to sit in on a lesson - whose bright idea was that?!!), I was ready to get away and relax. Neither of us are that psyched for sport climbing at the moment with it being so hot and it seemed a little silly to drive all the way up to the pyrenees when we'll be there later this week, so we opted for some walking and more exploring around the Prades area. Again I'll just post some photos of some of the highlights.

Day 1 was a walk down in the gorges around Siurana. A very familiar area for climbing but I'd never explored this end of the valley.

After a long and painful bush-whack along from the source of the Siurana river at La Febro (which we were led to believe was a half decent track!) we finally emerged below the Corral Nou sector at Siurana for a very welcome dip.

This little chap was sunning himself on a rock.

Another beautiful pool - this time big enough for a swim!

Another nice pool in the gorge - no swim this time!

And then we had a BBQ on the La Mussara ridge overlooking Reus.

BBQ with a view!

Best burger in my life...and ya don't get a view like that at McDonald's!!

The bright lights of Reus town!

Next day we started off from Prades village and headed up the hill...

....to Tossal de la Baltasana - the highest point in the Prades area (1,203m).
Amazing views of Prades village, La Mussara, the end of the Montsant ridge, and even across to the Pyrenees to the North





From there we carried on along the ridge, dropped down into another valley and then back up...

...to L'Ermita de l'Abellera, tucked into a rock overhang in the side of the cliff.

Nice spot for a church.



The view out from the church.



And then back to Prades for a mooch around.

Meteorologicos mañana...scorchio!!

Finally the summer looks like it's arrived properly! Perfect timing with the end now in sight...only three more work days to go until holiday time!! :-)