Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Run to the hills

Monistrol de Montserrat

Yesterday we rented a car from the Barcelona airport and headed out of town and to the hills on Montserrat. It was about an hour of driving from the airport, through one major wrong turn and to the hostel, Hostel Guilleumes, in the town of Monistrol de Montserrat. It was a rainy morning but dried up a bit for the afternoon allowing us time to hike the trails of the Montserrat mountains, explore the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery and ride a funicular (the steepest funicular in Spain) up high into the mountains. We had hoped to some climbing on the cool conglomerate rock of Montserrat but the rain earlier in the day had left things damp and slick.

Exploring the hermitage ruins of Montserrat

We had a very nice three-course dinner last night in the restaurant below the hostel while watching Barcelona's futbol team beat Milan 3 to 1 with a spirited group of fans.

It rained hard, with plenty of lightning and thunder last night, so there will be no climbing today. Intead, we'll drive to Baro where we have arranged an apartment rental for the next week at Camping Beta. Hopefully we'll find some dry rock to climb later today but it's not likely. Tomorrow looks to be party cloudy while Friday looks to be wet again. However, the forecast for next week looks good right now so we're optimistic about getting some climbing in then.

The massive rock formations of Montserrat seen from Monistrol de Montserrat

5 comments:

dylan said...

So beautiful, good stuff

Nat said...

Sorry to hear about the rain... if you find stuff steep enough to climb in the rain make sure to take some victory whips after sending. They are lots of fun!

The Beist said...

Hope the weather improves.

Jason Halladay said...

Thanks y'all. It was drizzly today so no climbing for us but we had a nice drive to Baro, Spain and got settled in our apartment. It's 8 miles or so from a crag called Collegats so we'll check that out tomorrow. There are tons of trails and high mountain hikes to check out around here so there's no lack of things to do no matter the weather!

Andy Thien said...

Those rock faces look impressive, even in a photo. Must be pretty mind boggling in person.