Monique and I have been in Spain for about three weeks now; climbing and photographing at the classic sport crags of Siurana and Montsant. This year is flying by at a hectic pace! We were home from New Zealand for only a week before heading off to Europe — just time to unpack, pack again, organise the office and buy a Nikon D3 (yes I’ve added some serious digital capture to my arsenal – I’ll have much more to say about that sometime later).
Monique hiking up to Montsant.
I love it here, the climbing is superb. The cutesy village of Cornadella sits in the middle of a wide valley. On opposite sides of the valley you have Siurana’s crimpy limestone or Montsant’s super sustained conglomerate pumpers to choose from. There are a few other good crags nearby as well.
Sector Raco de Missa, Montsant.
So far it has been wet, wet, wet, an awful lot of the time. We are used to this in Spain though; we’ve made two previous trips here in recent years and both of those trips ended early due to rain and flooding! This time we are determined to get some good quality climbing and photography time so we’ve given ourselves plenty of time so we can sit out bad weather if need be. It’s not so bad though, Siurana drys quickly and even if some of the test pieces at Montsant look like they’ll take weeks to dry, there are still plenty of classics to do. For photos the cloud and variable conditions sure beats day after day of sunny blue sky.
There are so many classics at Montsant… this 6b+ doesn’t even have a name. Nearby I climbed a 42m 6c+/7a that was of the best sustained pitches I’ve ever climbed.
More sustained pumping… Dario Zanon, El Gordinflon (7a+), Sector Cingle del Rodes, Montsant.
And across the valley… Sector El Pati at Siurana. The famous La Rambla (9a+) tackles the orange buttress near the left end.
Top Spanish climber Mariona Marti on Take Note (8a), Siurana.
Toni Arbones (The “King”) on a steep 7b, not far from the great campground his family runs atop Siurana.
