Fish climbing

I used to post these, mountain for a dream (before, when i used to have high-flying dreams). What about a route for a dream? The fish.


Marmolada...

(the one in blue in the center, 33 pitches, as long as the Nose)

Collegats

This w-end we spent in Collegats, another climbing area from the countless list of the climbing options available in Cataluna. Collegats is probably better known for its barrancos (canyons) - some info on the area and camping here. One of the strange places there could probably have been the inspiration to Gaudi's Nativity portal of the Sagrada Familia - it is called Argenteria Waterfall, maybe because of how it looks during winter, and it does look very strange indeed (not my picture):

We, however, as usual, were there for the climbing, and climb we did - two very good, although very different routes. The first one, Sang de Crack (topo here, although pretty sandbagged i would say...), was a semi-equipped wonder, with a first pitch that got my head and spirits down, and the continuation very enjoyable for each single pitch, even the last, one-move 5 wonder at the top, where I managed to use 3 cams to protect one move...Below is myself with full rack, the wall to be climbed is behind:


The cecond route was Passatge de l'Impossible, on the lower wall (center right wall way low near the river in the overview picture above, taken from the top of the Sang de Crack), very stunning location. The approach to the wall itself requires a tyrolian traverse over the river(set up by the canyon guides for their clients I suppose) - Cathy showing me how it's done below:


The tyrolian starts the adrenaline rush, and the climb continues in the same spirit. We first got off route with the first pitch, supposedly five. After aiding on each single bolt, tying off a tree and getting to a roof, I finally came to the pragmatic conlusion it could not in any world, even the catalan one, be a five, and successfully bailed. After starting the right pitch we enjoyed ourselves very much, and became the added attraction for the crowds swimming out of the Inferno canyon. The route surprised us by the difficulty, the pitches are definitely a big sandbag at 6a. The sun also got to us as our timing, as usual, was off the wall (double the guidebook's estimate). But we did summit, rapped, and finally bathed in the river :). Good w-end, off to train for more!

Here is Cathy leading off the aid pitch (supposedly 8a free), the opposite conglomerate side of the canyon as a background, with the Tanger route there in the skyline:

Ice Fajol in Valter 2000

This w-end we visited the Oriental Pyrennees that boast one interesting climb, just to the left of Vallter 2000 skiing area, one of the rare remaining private ski resorts in Cataluna. The mountain, Gran Fajol is a good winter alpine and ice destination to do corridors. It is less-known for climbing (for a reson, given the usually bad quality of rock). However, there is one interesting route on the main wall, going more or less through the center of the picture below:

It is called Ice Fajol, and as Oriol wanted to free climb the 6c+ pitch on it, i was lured into the undertaking. The route has 3 interesting pitches on the main wall of orange-white gneiss rock - 6a, 6c+, 6a+ protectable with friends and pitons. Below is Oriol following the first 6a:


The objective accomplished, we quickly descended to have a drink at Refugio de Ull de Ter below. Very nice setting at 2hr drive from Barcelona, nothing like a mountain strall to beat the onset of the heat! Below is the route, but in the winter setting (from the winter ascent by Oriol last year):

Silvio

Another good Latin American singer, from Cuba this time...



discovered thx to Silvia :)

Montgrony

We went to Montgrony for a hot summer day. It is a beautiful climbing spot and an old sanctuary dating back to the 9th century.

Now it is more of a tourist and climbing destination, with a lovely restaurant and recently renovated hostel at the base. The view is stunning with Pedraforca in the background (right corner of the pic below), and the climbing seems good too, although it is mainly south-facing.

We went to a North face a little bit lower down the valley, with less views, but more shade. Climbing is mainly hard, in the high 6s and lots of 7s range. Most pictures by the master, Chris Glennie!

In Memory Of...

Montserrat - Sanchez Martinez

We got on one of the classics in Montserrat this w-end, the Sanchez Martinez on Pared de Diables. (view of Cavel Bernard above as seen from mid-climb). It is a beautiful 10 pitch climb with relatively few spots requiring serious aiding.


The climbing is very diverse, stating with a chimney below, becoming a crack climb on conglomerate, incredible as it sounds, changing into the "big roof", no need for El Cap here!


And finishing with a classic Montserrat slab, with nice 3 pitches of 6a. Beautiful views and not a bad walk-off make it for a perfect day! Big thanks to the participants (Renaud) and the logistic team (Silvia and David)!

Camarasa, the New Infatuation

We went to Camarasa for sport climbing this w-end. I did not have many expectations, as we have driven past the spot, and I have wondered several times where the climbing could potentially be. But then again, by car, you quickly enter into a tunnel, and do not really realize what the whole canyon is about. Below is the view to the dam from the top sector of la Selva (there is a climber in the top right corner) :

Finally, this w-end we realized - and there goes my favorite sport-climbing destination in Cataluna so far (probably closely followed by La Mussara) - Camarasa the beautiful. Like many crags around here, it has undergone several waves of development, the most recent one by Albert Cortes and friends. They actually discovered two brand new sectors on the top part of the canyon, named Fashion and la Selva, that they cleaned from the bush, provided with a via ferrata access, and numerous bolts. Now there are about 250 fully bolted routes in Camarasa - and, as usual, no up-to-date guidebook. The place has been made popular by Escalar, Desnivel's magazine, with some high-profile pictures of high-profile Spanish climbers having fun with the rock there. A big thanks to Albert for showing us around - and, what's more, doing the hard and merciless work of crag development. Below, the team exploring the routes:

Below is the picture of one of the lower zones, La Pasarela, where you belay from the walkway along the lake over the dam, with water effects and cool exposure as your perks:

Down below, near the road, is another sector, where we started the experience of agujeros, the pocket world!


That's the story - and here are the pictures. First try that left a lot of good taste in my mouth. An upcoming visit has to happen soon!!! Here is the wanna-be sport climber in action:



Lastly, a view of another neighboring wall, Pared de Dol, an intriguing sign of the endless adventure land, the beautiful Cataluna en primavera! (most pictures by Chris and Cathy)

Kudoos to Marc and Armin!!!

Good job, guys, and thanks to Tom Evans for live pics :)

Cuando uno se enamora las cuadrillas
del tiempo hacen escala en el olvido
la desdicha se llena de milagros
el miedo se convierte en osadía
y la muerte no sale de su cueva

enamorarse es un presagio gratis
una ventana abierta al árbol nuevo
una proeza de los sentimientos
una bonanza casi insoportable
y un ejercicio contra el infortunio

por el contrario desenamorarse
es ver el cuerpo como es y no
como la otra mirada lo inventaba
es regresar más pobre al viejo enigma
y dar con la tristeza en el espejo

(M. Benedetti)

Pared de Cataluña, or big wall Catalan style

This w-end saw some of our ambition come true as we headed for Montrebei. The naming is very confusing in this part of the world, so to get is straight, the pre-Pyrenees range going from Terradets gorge to Montrebei gorge is called Montsec Oeste or Montsec d'Ares, it includes such walls as Pared de Begasses (Terradets), Font Freda, Pared de Ager, and finally Pared de Cataluña (Montrebei). I suppose that the range stops an Pared de Cataluña (to the right in the picture above, a closer look in the picture below), although I am not exactly certain.


Nevertheless, on the other side of the gorge there is Pared de Aragon, another equally big wall, already part of Aragon, but also part of Montrebei from what i gather (picture below). Cataluña or Aragon, both walls form a gorge and are very attractive to a climber's eye. They involve around 400 meters of vertical to overhanging terrain, mainly adventure style, with numerous aid and trad lines going up this immense sea of limestone. Moreover, these walls go on for kilometers on one side of the gorge and another. Yes, this country is a rock paradise, and please correct me if anyone is more advanced than myself with the naming game!


Anyway, we climbed a route on Pared de Cataluña, called Diedro Gris. It is one of the two easiest routes up this impressive wall whose description mercifully does not include the use of pitons or any other extended aiding technique. We even did not include the recommended friend 4 in our material list after several climbing parties told us we did not really need it on the route (and true, we did not). The approach starts with the walk-in down a spectacular man-made path through the gorge, a popular hiking destination for its own sake. It looks something like this (path in the middle left of the picture) :


The full view of the walls comes in after the gorge (when approaching from the North), displayed in the inverse order in this post. Then the business of actually getting to the top of these monsters has to begin, and it is as intimidating or more as it looks, even for the easiest route out there! Also, the Cataluña wall is in the shade until at least two, so our first pitches were pretty cold, painful and laborious. Here is Cathy with full clothing following the 6th pitch, another very impressive 5+. That is basically when we began taking pictures, meaning that sun finally hit us and our mood significantly improved.


Below is Cathy two more pitches up, getting slowly undressed and starting to enjoy the experience, exposure, and view, the perks of the climbing trade. I liked the second half of the climb very much. The 6a crux of the route is an amazing side-pull-bridge-and-don't-get-scared roof on gear, nicely led by Cath just before this pic, hence the big grin:


And, this is the view from the top, with snow-capped Pyrenees fading through the over-exposure of my camera - but they are there, waiting for the conqueror, god, or just a lost tourist, believe me, i know!


PS - some pictures (the best ones) are courtesy of Cathy

...Self-Reflecting...

Sella

First visit to Costa Blanca to supplement the knowledge of the area and climb some more went on last w-end. It is the most hilly province in Spain, and for a reason! The popularity of climbing around Alicante, in the Valencia region, is partly due to the Costa Blanca guidebook published by Rockfax, a good resource for the English-speakers, something rather rare in the Spanish climbing world, or at least in my home Cataluna. This might be to the best on the other hand, given the plethora of Englishmen getting all these nice routes polished to death in Costa Blanca - i'd rather they kept far, far away from our hidden treasures...


For our first visit, we went to Sella, one of the most popular sport climbing spots. The limestone is polished on lower grades, however the setting is beautiful and makes you quickly forget the buildings and ugly cemented coast of the close-by urbanistic disaster, Benidorm. The first day we spent working Kashba, a very good line, although pretty sustained for the grade.

The second day, with more confidence, we went to the Rosalia wall, where the real things happen. The limestone is totally unpolished due to higher grades and 5-minute longer approach. We did a 3-pitch Tanit (view below from the belay on the 2nd pitch), and a couple of first pitches. I was impressed by the 1st pitch 6c of La estacion de la bruia, and especially the El endemoniado that can be toproped from the same anchor - a very sustained line, worth by itself coming back to the crag - not mentionning all the other multipitches we ignored this time...


And below is el Divino, on the other side of the valley, one of the many many objectives, like Puig Campana or Penon de Ifach, that remain out there. Thanks to all the friends who made this another very nice w-end!


There is a relaxing, Mexican-style refuge almost at the base of the cliff, with climbers as guardians, and 6 eur per night, hard to beat! Definitely a place to come back for further exploring!

Susana Baca

A very good Peruvian singer, Susana Baca is worth listening to over and over on a good or on a bad day.

Oh My Dear Ukraine

I have spent my Easter holidays in the long forgotten homeland. It greeted me with wonderful weather, warmer than my adopted Barcelona. The first day i strove through the familiar streets and took a couple of positive and negative shots. First, the spring view of renovated Lviv sights, the Korniakta tower on this one:


Next, the various restaurants and bars that have clustered the streets of my city in numerous, sometimes unexpected places. With the outside seating the city center looks very comfortable and welcoming, especially on the sunny days.


And some negative ones of the post-Soviet reality, this one of the garbage cans in front of my apartment building (in the fore-left is a hole in the road, marked with a rod for careful drivers to securely bypass)...


On a sidenote, my funniest experience in Ukraine has been listening to the news. Most of the stories were perfect humoristic ones - for example this is the list of news from one evening: a ship cannot get into port in Crimea since 4 months because it is caring stinking meat that none wants; 50 Indonesians living in Kiev are going to vote using their fingers and have even more parties to choose from than the ukrainians; a kindergarden that won a Leninist medal in the 1930ies is going to close because new elite is building apartment blocks on Kyiv´s hills with beautiful views on the river...Ukraine, eternal country of paradoxes! Here goes another shot from the entrance to the nicely restored Armenian church in Lviv, in the city center:


And finally our old but happy yellow house in the mountains:


The other upside of travelling is getting to see old friends, some of whom I have not seen for already...10 years! This is sad but true, time is passing relentlessly. Below Julia and Julia in London´s parks:


And Jenia in same London rambling:

And coffee lovers in Lviv´s Svit Kavu:

And several more that i forgot to take pictures of. Thanks for everyone who found time for me, coffee, conversation, and even a spare bed on occasion during this trip!