Ari and I spent a few days in the mountains near the village Prades, to the West of Barcelona. We headed off on Thursday evening with climbing gear, my bike and our laptops and arrived at our Air BnB in Cornudella de Montsant in the evening. I worked Friday morning and then after lunch I went road cycling, following the almost entirely empty roads through the hills tracing an 80km loop. The roads were in top condition, which was confusing considering the lack of traffic. They were interesting and quite windy in parts. We went for a walk to the the nearby hydro lake when I returned and went out for dinner to a climbing friendly restaurant in the evening.
On Saturday we did a couple of very nice via ferrata routes. The first, Via Ferrada La Trona, took us a bit to find as it was hidden in the forest. We had good views down into the valley and a small abseil near the end. Afterwards, we spent some time poking around an old abandoned village after having lunch near a refuge.
We started the second ferrata (Via Ferrata dels Patacons) later in the afternoon/evening. This one was spectacular with great views out into the valley and of the exposed cliffs jutting out of the forest. It had a slightly overhanging crux section followed by four steel rope bridges. We followed the route slowly, taking our time and enjoying it. The colours became rich and vivid as the evening progressed. We climbed a rock tower near the end and then abseiled back down, before crossing the last rope bridge. Following this we had a short walk before the last feature, an abseil. I set up my half rope through the abseil ring suspended in the middle of a chasm by two chains. We had a short abseil down before walking back under the cliffs and through the forest to the car.
On Sunday I cycled to “new” Prades where I met Ari. We had lunch at a restaurant before we tried but failed to go climbing. We then tried and almost failed to do another via ferrata route. We failed on the climbing as we didn’t know exactly where the easy routes were and by the time we found them we decided it was getting too late. We almost failed on the ferrata route as we couldn’t find it for some time and these consecutive failures were not to Ari’s liking. The route description was very vague and sent us up to the top of a sizable hill with a tower. We ascended the tower and stared out in all directions. There was a good view back to Monserrat near Barcelona and the hills made a jagged line along the horizon. Where could the ferrata be? Finally as the sun was almost setting, we went for a walk down below the tower and along the base of some tall cliffs. It was a jungle of undergrowth but eventually, by chance, we found a thin cable leading up the rock. It was supposed to be easy but we were a little stressed about running out of daylight and the cables’ diameter and tension didn’t give us much confidence . We clambered up as fast as possible using a piece of fixed rope that had been left attached to the route. We reached the tower at the top of the hill again and walked back down in the twilight, driving back to Barcelona in the evening.
