Never doubt yr.no!

The amazing weather website that is http://www.yr.no/ was once again bang on with its prediction for today, despite it looking pretty unlikely this morning. The forecast was for sun first thing, then becoming cloudy around 2pm with a chance of light rain. But when there wasn't a single cloud in the sky this morning I had my doubts!

We had another day of exploration - today checking out some new sectors at Mont-ral. The first on the agenda was the Riu sector, down at the bottom of the valley in a beautiful location and with only the sound of the river to listen to all day - no screaming babies or barking dogs! The temperatures were pretty similar to yesterday with the sun shining and a bit of wind to keep things cool (yes I put suncream on today!). I started on an amazing 6c crack climb ('Kk's crack') with good finger locks and plenty of laybacking - a brilliant route. Then did another fantastic 7a+ curving crack/groove called 'Zimbabwe', which came complete with a 'wedged death flake' (guidebook description!) that you had to climb on top of and hope it didn't come loose! The polish on the block testified to the fact that it'd been there for a while, but it was still a bit worrying standing on it. I then ticked off the only remaining good-looking route at the sector - a 6c+ called 'Je suis pille' - total sandbag at the grade, with some hard moves to gain the hanging crack and then another thin move at the top of this, but another very good quality route.

At this point there still wasn't a cloud in the sky so I put more suncream on, in anticipation of a nice stint of sunbathing while belaying Tash on some routes. But low and behold, just as she was setting off on 'Kk's crack' the clouds predicted by yr.no started to roll in (just before 2pm like they said!) and I had to put my damn t-shirt on!

Tash just about to set off on 'Kk's crack' (6c) at the Riu sector in Mont-ral (sun still shining at this point!)
The route goes up the crack directly above her head and the 7a+ follows the groove to the left (which kinks right halfway up)

After this we moved on to check out some more new sectors. Next up was the small L'Escenari buttress, directly above the main walkers track. The first routes we got to were pretty short and fairly uninspiring, but just round the corner was a much longer part of the wall, with some better looking routes on. I did a 7a first, on perfect rock and with some really interesting climbing, then the 7b to its right. The rock at this sector was completely different to the rest of Mont-ral - more solid and compact like Siurana and gave really good crimpy climbing. The 7b was even better than the 7a and had a brilliant rising traverse up a slanting crack to get a good hold out on the right and then a rockover back leftwards over the bulge, before some easier but still quality climbing to the top. Without doubt a 3* route in anyone's money!

After this route I was feeling pretty tired and, with another day climbing tomorrow, I decided to call it a day. Unfortunately it was really cloudy and quite chilly now, so the planned sunbathing by the river will have to wait until next time! It's nice to know the forecast was accurate though!

We walked back up the main track and had a look at two other sectors on the way back - Totxo Graffiti (definitely worth coming back for a couple of 7b+'s) and El terrari (short routes, but maybe worth a few hours on the way to or from some of the other sectors).