Outclimbed by a squirrel...



Note the gale force winds for today.



Montbrió can be quite a windy place on occasion, but not usually as bad as this! Apparently it's caused quite a bit of damage in Tarragona. But after hearing about the earthquake in NZ yesterday I won't complain too much.

Not surprisingly we went to one of the most sheltered places in Siurana today to avoid being knocked over by the flying debris - Can Piqui Pugui.

Not Can Piqui Pugui. The Siuranella crags in fact - but it was a nice photo I took on the drive up this morning.

But as usual, once we got down to the crag and out of the way of the wind it was actually really warm. Even a bit too hot at times!

The climbing started well, and I on-sighted four 7a's in a row on the right-hand side of the sector. Tash also casually on-sighted a brilliant 6b+ as her warm-up! Unfortunately this was the end of our success for the day, as I then ripped my finger open on a mono pulling off the floor on the next route.

After optimistically taping the finger up, I tried to do another 7a+ starting from a dirty cave that obviously doubles as a toilet. I should have taken this as a sign, because the route turned out to be very similar to the cave. I couldn't get past the first bolt on it (afterwards we went to the campsite bar to check out some new routes and this one had a big question mark next to it, so obviously I'm not the only one!).

All of Tash's potential routes also had people on them by this point, so we decided to call it a day and head home for some lunch.

On the plus side, while belaying Tash on her route I saw a red squirrel climb plumb vertical up the overhanging line of 'Chicane' (F8c+!), so at least someone had a productive climbing day today ;-)