Xurreria & last orders at Barrots

After a few more rest days than usual this week, to get rid of my lingering cold and also grow a bit of skin back, the weekend started with the planned return to L'Enderrocada, but thankfully without the mist this time. My aim for the day was ticked a bit quicker than predicted - done 1st go today, despite getting a bad flash pump after failing to warm up properly yet again (there's a theme developing here!). I was quite surprised at how much easier it felt today though - the beer towel gaffa taped round my leg definitely helped to make the most of the kneebars! 'La Xurreria' (8a) - a great route and worth a visit to the sector just for this!

So with that out of the way I could relax and ticked off a superb 7c (Ácido Galáctico) and 7a+.

Another shot of 'La Xurreria' (8a) at L'Enderrocada



Raco de Missa area of Montsant on the way back.



Sunday was a lot colder, with a strong breeze and plenty of cloud around, so warming up and staying warm proved a bit challenging - first hot aches of the winter! In hindsight it wasn't the best choice for the conditions but being the last opportunity to go to some of the Montsant bird banned areas we went up to do a combination of Falconera and Barrots Inferior. These are all the routes you walk past on the way up to bigger things off the Barrots Superior ledge, but every single one of them was surprisingly excellent. And thankfully the cloud had disappeared by midday so the afternoon was perfect climbing temps. I onsighted eight routes, including all the decent 7s and a few 6s at the two sectors. Not much to come back for here now, except I did have another gawp at the amazing-looking 'Els intocables' - a 110m 4 pitch 7c+ climbing straight up the middle of the biggest face at Montsant (La Falconera) - maybe next Autumn?

That'll be the last time we climb on the bird banned stuff this year, so I'm looking forward to more Montsant exploration after xmas on the unrestricted stuff. Plenty of rock to go at :-)





Falconera sector (L), Barrots Inferior (R), and the line of 'Els intocables'. All of which look tiny. I assure you they're not!