Photo: Bernardo Gimenez
After being stuck in the gym for a while, Spain is always our first destination for rock climbing, and before our latest trip, we had a thrill of anticipation, excited to touch the Spanish rock again. Our plan was to stay in Cornudella, a small village surrounded by tons of rock. A typical Spanish village with small side streets, old bars, small houses and super relaxed people, Cornudella is famous for being the basecamp for many climbers from all over the world. You really can say that in the climbing season there are more climbers in the village than non-climbers. And because of this, we always meet friends there.
Siurana, Margalef and Montsant are all only 30 minutes away from the town, and the climbing playground is very varied. In Siurana, most of the routes are super crimpy and bouldery. In Montsant, the routes are long and pumpy, and of course in Margelef you can have everything from long, pumpy super cool looking tufas, or sharp painful pockets, boulder routes or pumpy, steep terrain. Everyone can find their dream lines here. Of course this is why Spain is one of the best climbing destinations in the world.
I had no special plan or goal for our trip. I just wanted to climb as much as possible, and enjoy the simple life in Spain. We climbed all day long, hung out, ate and slept. Jacopo had some routes that he wanted to try, so we went the first day to Can Piqui Pugui.
After some warm-up climbs, Jacopo tried A Muerte, a classic, super-hard route in the middle of the wall. On his first day on it, he looked very close to sending. I tried Renegoide, a vertical and technical 8b+ that Jacopo recommended to me. I was super happy to send this route after two tries, and my send made me super motivated for the next day’s climb.
Photo: Bernardo Gimenez
I decided to try what is, in my opinion, the best looking route at the crag. Chikane has a lot of little crimps, which I love to climb on, so this line was just perfect. I could do each single move quite fast, but I was far away from connecting all seven hard moves in the boulder crux. I tried the route for three days, making some progress. But in the end, I didn’t want to try just one route on our two-week trip. There are so many other cool routes to climb. I couldn’t just focus on one. But Chikane is a good reason to come back next year and stay longer!
For the rest of the trip, we climbed in Montsant and Magalef, working a lot of completely different routes, from big tufas to long, pumpy routes like Elements, an 8b+. In the end, we had a great time there, climbing in the Spanish sun.
- Babsi Zangerl
