Este post no es en castellano porque fuimos a escalar a Montserrat con un compañero de trabajo inglés que vino de visita y nunca se había atado a una cuerda.
Mahdi finally made it to Barcelona! A first attempt back in May was aborted due to the ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. In September the general strikes in France and Spain forced Mahdi's flights to be cancelled. This time everything went ok.
The chosen route is called Aresta Brucs and goes up la Miranda de les Bohigues, one of the pinacles of the Agulles region in Montserrat, Catalunya. It is 65 metres long and the degree of difficulty is IV+. It is a good one for a first contact with rock climbing, and the descent doesn't require upsailing.
Like many local climbers do, we set off early and stopped at bar La Roca (The Rock) in Monistrol, where we had a nice sandwich and coffee/tea. From home this was a bit of a detour however I wanted Mahdi to see the North face of this magical mountain range.
It was Bank holiday in Spain and although the weather forecast was good the day was pretty cloudy and a bit cool. Still, when we got to Can Maçana, where you leave the car, we were surprised to see quite a few cars. Luckily, as we saw later, none of the climbers were going to the route we had chosen.
The approach is a gentle and beautiful walk and in 45 minutes we were at the foot of la Miranda. Mahdi had tried a spare pair of climbing shoes I have but they were far too tight. The B plan was using a pair of old running shoes I have. This gives more merit to Mahdi's first climb.
The first pitch is a very short one, pretty easy, to gain a nice belay area. The second pitch is a very typical conglomerate wall from Montserrat, about 40 metres long. Mahdi took his time, with Lara behind him giving him some advice, and did really well. The third pitch is also a short one, however although it has good handholds it is vertical, even a bit overhanging.
In the pictures you can see Mahdi at the second belay point, and laughing! and just getting out of the relatively easy but slightly overhang section of the last pitch.
When we thought about taking Mahdi climbing the easiest would have been to go to one of the many sport climbing areas we have here, where in some of them you only need to walk one minute from the car to get to the routes. Sport climbing is about short routes and pushing as hard as you can, and when you get to the top you're lowered down, however climbing to the top of one of the towers or pinnacles in Montserrat is a totally different experience, you get the feeling of reaching a summit and we thought Mahdi would enjoy this a lot more.
The descent required a bit of downclimb on the East side of this tower. Although easy, Mahdi was with running shoes so for precaution we did take the rope out for a couple of sections. Once on the main path the clouds started disappearing and we managed to get a nice shot of the area where we'd just been climbing.
As you can imagine, Mahdi was a bit stiff the next day!
