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. 

Making the best of the British weather

Since the torrential rain all day Monday and Tuesday the weather's been a bit frustrating this week. Forecasts have predicted rain most days which hasn't really ended up coming to anything - I guess that's a good thing?! Nevertheless we've managed to get out, and probably more than usual, as every day it was a case of 'making the most of it before the rain comes'.

Wednesday we stupidly opted for a 'quick drying' crag - La Riba - but underestimated the normally trickling river, which had become a completely impassable raging torrent.

Dry crag. Wet river!

We salvaged the day after a long detour to end up at La Mussara, which was a little too hot in the sun so shredded my tips on some crimpy wall climbs. Highlight of the day was a superb 7b called 'Noni' - a burly start on rock and features not dissimilar to the middle bit of Malham cove.

Thursday we were up at Siurana, where there were still plenty of wet streaks about. We opted for a new esoteric sector - Grau de la Covassa - up on the Siuranella cliffs. Turned out to be quite good. I had a go up a hard 7c+ there named 'Via del Cugat'. Had a decent redpoint on it but need to go back and finish it off.

Wetness at sector Solarium - route is 'Total Insanity' 8a.

Friday was another morning spent failing on the major project at Mont-roig. I still haven't managed to repeat the link I did a few weeks ago - not sure if this is to do with the dampness there's been every time since or if I'm getting weaker. Hope it's just the former! Anyway I did manage to do something new there - 'Atog allargada', given font 7a+ in the guide but I've learnt not to believe anything written in that! Felt the same as 'Parasiempre' extension so probably 7b/+ ish. Will be good to get to Font again in April to get a feel for how bouldering grades actually work again!

Not a huge amount of new climbing on it but thought I'd record it anyway.

Saturday it was supposed to rain again but as per usual it didn't really come to anything and there was even bright sunshine in the morning!

Autumn colours in the Priorat vineyards. Montsant in the background.

Dave, Paul & Sarah were planning to go to Montsant so we headed up to Raco de Missa to meet them. Turns out they only had the old Rockfax guide which has the most inaccurate approach description ever written. So they arrived just as we had to leave at 3pm - in fact, Dave didn't actually get there until we'd left, after a 3hr hike around the hills trying to find the crag! We had a decent day's climbing before the drizzle came, though were both tired from the previous three days. I managed to fill in a few gaps, on-sighting some superb low 7's that I'd overlooked previously.

Anyway, the latest long term forecast shows just a few more days of bad weather then it looks to be finally settling down to what we're more used to at this time of year - cold, crisp blue sky days perfect for crushing in the sun. Fingers crossed it turns out to be accurate...

Masboquera crag exploration

After a bit too much birthday wine last night we weren't exactly jumping out of bed to go climbing so opted for a little bit of late afternoon crag exploration down near Masboquera. After passing the vomit-inducing waste water pipe from the village we got down into the dry river bed where, amazingly, we found a few bolted lines.

Tash at the base of one of the awe-inspiring lines on the way to the main crag.
Yes, it really has been developed. 2 bolts and then the lower-off!



The main objective for the day: the crag near Masboquera that we'd seen on a previous exploratory day.



Up close it was as impressive as I'd thought, with some superb ~30m lines on very good quality rock. Sadly there was only one easy route following a crack line, with a couple of bolts in place at half-height presumably for a belay. Apart from that there was no sign of any development. Unfortunately actually getting onto the decent rock on the RH side looked like it'd be a challenge due to the lower ivy-covered wall up to the ledge - maybe the reason it hasn't been bolted?

Left-hand side of the wall.

Rock igloo on the road to Masriudoms. Finally got round to checking it out today.

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.





500th belay from Tash!

Not exactly true as there'll be loads of climbs I haven't recorded, but according to my logbook on UKC it was our 500th climb together this Tuesday. And what with her birthday on Saturday it'll have to be a double celebration. Or not!

Anyway the route in question was 'Twin Turbo' (7c) at L'Aparador in Siurana. I tried this over a month ago as one of my first routes after the long summer break but couldn't even do the crux moves. Today, after warming up, I tried it putting the draws in but fell from the final hard move through the crux. I wasn't surprised at failing but was quite pleased at how much easier it felt than last time. Anyway I lowered to the ground and did it next go, so ground-up I guess? On the way down I worked a few of the crux moves on the 7c+ next door but lost a lot of skin in the process, but that's ready for a redpoint next time we go up there.

We checked out the neighbouring crags of La Covassa and La Capella afterwards, where there's been a load of development since the new guide was published, especially at Covassa. A new sector seems to have been discovered on the right-hand side, following some gardening and ivy removal, which looks very good. No grades or names known so a trip to the campsite bar is required.

Yesterday (Thursday), we returned to Mont-roig for a bouldering session to try and top up the power levels. I was keen to have a go at linking the project right from the start, but instead failed to even repeat the link I did last Saturday. I initially thought this problem was impossible, but then made quite fast progress linking the individual moves so thought "it's not too bad after all". Now i'm back to my original thinking. Maybe not impossible but certainly very hard. The 7c grade might be justified for this one. We'll see...

Wetness and a few Mont-roig sessions...

The weather's been a bit poor since we got back from Cuenca. It's rained to some degree more or less every day, so I haven't been massively psyched to make the trip over the hill. Saturday we nipped out for a short bouldering session at Mont-roig, when I managed to link the 'Contracorriente' project from the jugs in the middle of the prow to the end (what I was trying in the last video). But I was way too tired to then link it from the true start.

Today we went up again, but after more rain overnight and no wind to dry the rock off some of the crucial slopers on the prow were a bit damp so I couldn't repeat what I did on Saturday, despite some determined and quite painful attempts! I then had a play on 'Virus' (7c), which comes directly out from the back of the cave, but couldn't do the final two moves. Definitely a good one to persevere with, in order to develop some pure power! Then finished off by repeating the Parasiempre extension, which I was quite pleased with as it felt pretty steady. A sure sign of some progress...hopefully!

The forecast shows an improvement in the weather this week so looks like we'll be out again soon...

CUENCA

With an extra day off this weekend, we were quite keen to explore a new crag somewhere a bit further afield. And after seeing some photos of Cuenca in a couple of magazines recently it seemed like an ideal time to check it out...

The climbing

The overall conclusion was that the climbing was pretty mixed. There's A LOT of rock here, but being one of Spain's oldest climbing areas, some of the easy access sectors have suffered from the worst the early developers could throw at them. Chipped and drilled routes, battered rock due to the amount of traffic, and plenty of sika thrown about to create new routes or try and repair old ones. Add to that the crowds flocking from Madrid, Valencia and Toledo every weekend, and the often lazy and unimaginative nature of most of those climbers, meaning that the closest sectors to the parking spots were a pretty unpleasant place to be at times.

Having said all that, by the end of the weekend we'd discovered some of the less popular crags and found quite a few gems among the mediocrity. And all in all we both had a pretty awesome time climbing-wise and finished the weekend with trashed skin and tired arms.

Highlights for me were:

- 'Tirando de Visa' (7b) at sector Bolo
- 'El golfo' and 'La guarra' (6b+) at sector Alfar - two low grade classics
- 'Capitan Trueno' (7a) at Alfar - photos of this route inspired the trip but a 7am(!) start was needed to actually get on it before the crowds!
- 'Tetas y cerveza' (7b) at Alfar - probably the best route I did the whole weekend. Had a bit of everything and no chipping, drilling or sika in sight!

Early morning mist clearing from the Jucar gorge - home to the majority of the Cuenca climbing.

Sector Alfar, above the road and quirky antique shop - about as easy access as it gets!

Tash on the Cuenca classic - 'La Guarra' (F6c) at sector Alfar. A stunning route.

One of the inspiring harder routes (to come back for?) - 'Public Enemy' (F8a+/b) at sector Martin Alhaja.

Breakfast by the river after an early morning session to avoid the crowds.

The worst of Cuenca - an entirely manufactured route!

Not a bad set up for a rock house!

The city

As a UNESCO World Heritage Site I guess we should have expected it to be pretty, but I don't think we were quite prepared for how beautiful the city is and how stunning the position of the old part, between the two gorges, actually is. We went for a wander round one afternoon after climbing, not really expecting much, and were amazed by the old fortified buildings built into the rock and hanging houses. And another thing that was really striking is how well set up the city seemed for people to get out into the gorges and go walking, cycling, kayaking and climbing along the river. Maybe the addition of the stunning autumn colours in the valleys had something to do with it, but by the end of the weekend we were both really taken with the city and its surroundings. Anyway I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Autumnal colours along the banks of the river.

Good river for kayaking / canoeing too.

Morning mist in the Jucar gorge.

The old fortified part of the city.

The old town on the hill overlooking the newer part down below.

Colourful houses in Cuenca.

Cuenca's gothic cathedral - facade was rebuilt in 1902 after the old one crumbled.

Puente de San Pablo connecting the old town with the San Pablo convent across the Huecar gorge.

The 15th Century 'Casas Colgadas' - hanging houses over the Huecar gorge.

The hanging houses lit up in the evening.

Jucar gorge lit up at night, with the old town on left and new town in the distance.

The conclusion

Living in Catalunya, with probably the highest concentration of world-class sport climbing anywhere on the planet, I think we're a bit spoilt nowadays. And anywhere new that we go is bound to be compared with the likes of Siurana, Margalef, Terradets, Rodellar etc etc. Which is pretty unfair to be honest. I'm really glad we went to Cuenca to check it out, and the climbing definitely grew on me through the weekend. Plus the city itself is something special - well worth a visit in its own right. Would I drive 5 hours away from Catalunya to climb there again?...I'm not so sure.