Miranda de les Boïgues

On top the Miranda de les Boïgues

Today, after a two months lasting abstinence, Xavi and me finally have found the time to do some climbing. Our initial idea was to do "La Agulla de Can Jorba" on the far side of Montserrat, but since I didn't buy a 60m alpine rope the day before, we had to change plans in favour of a route possible to climb with our shorter rope measuring 47m only. A glance in my climbing book which focusses on the area called "Agulles" revealed that "La Miranda de les Boïgues" would do as a proper alternative.
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The route we've chosen is the most classical to be done, the most logical and of those which actually include climbing, probably the easiest, too. It's called The Aresta Brucs a route name to be found on virtually every rock needle in Montserrat. I'm not aware of the significance of this name, but it must have something to do with the adjectives I've used in the last sentence (classical, logical, easy).

Sketch of the route, source: www.ressenya.net

To begin with, this 70m route consists of 3 pitches, the first and last being rather short. Xavi lead the second, the difficult one whereas I lead the easy ones. The only problems we were confronted with, we encountered during the secon pitch. When Xavi started to sing I already knew he was frightened and as a matter of fact, even for me as the follower, one point was quite troublesome. For two minutes I was looking out for something to grab or step on, but there was nothing the rock face would offer me. When my left leg started to tremble, I still hadn't found anything and finally had to make use of the same bad holds I already had discovered long before. As always, it somehow worked and soon I joined Xavi at the belay station. The last pitch was up to me, again, but it only confronted us with a minor problem easy to be solved. It even would have been possible to make use of a clipped-in sling, but cheating wasn't nessessary.

Xavi

Moments after Xavi had arrived on top the Miranda, we unpacked what would be our breakfast and while eating enjoyed the always impressive surroundings. Since we had some time left, we took another look in the book and made out an interesting looking route up a rock needle called "El Dàtil". On our way down we kindly were offered to make use of the other climber's rope, but then we lost some time looking for the "way" and finally were not sure whether what we found actually was the Dàtil or not. Our way, however, lead us to another crag called La Podrida where we made out an interesting looking route. By then we weren't in much of a climbing mood anymore but instead decided to continue our walk up to the north east wall of Montserrat and then back to the car. Other projects we've discovered include the rock needles of "La Filigrana", "La Agulla de l'Arbret" and "La Saca Gran".