Our friend Chris Bonington visited us last Saturday -March-6th- to take advantage of the only window of good weather he has had during his first visit to our country this year. We have been climbing together for several years now (Chris visits us twice a year, usually March and November). When it comes to rock climbing, he has a taste for long moderated free climbing stuff and magnificient landscapes, and Montserrat provides us both.
This time we met in El Bruc for breakfast, went thru several topos over it and finally decided to show up in Can Jorba area soon enough to beat the crowds that by mid morning wait in line to start any of the excellent long routes exploring the Miranda de Can Jorba slab. We were a “little” group of 11 climbers: 2 teams went for Sol Solet, 1 team decided on Escabroni Escapullini and Chris’s rope team went for Bego-Miguel-Kush.
All 3 routes enjoy 5-6 pitches of perfect conglomerate, perfectly equipped sustained climbing within the 4a-4c range with the occasional 5a-5b move, and clean rock from bottom to top. Once in the wall we had to endure a polished first pitch (result of these routes popularity) in the shade in a quite cold morning but, after reaching the first belay station, a warm sun accompanied us all the way to the top, on which we were standing shortly after 3 hours of climbing, at 01:00 p.m.
With such beautiful routes, the fair weather and the typically wonderful Montserrat landscape around, only Chris’s left painful ankle (a “souvenir” of an old fall) stopped Chris short of rounding a great day up with another route in the Torrent de Migdia area. Instead of that, we took our time to hike around and slowly descending back to Can Jorba while enjoying a beautiful scenery. We finished the day sharing some beers and snacks in El Bruc, truly happy after another day in paradise.
Sol Solet, Escabroni Escapullini, and Bego-Miguel-Kush topos can be found in Vinya Nova and Can Jorba e-book, available in our ROCKTOPO SHOP
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