Canal del Ninet / Ot el Bruixot at La Filigrana

El Ninet looking down upon the canyon

El Ninet is a rather small crag in Montserrat, but due to its location at the verge of the mountain's north face it's widely visible and because of its overhanging appearance it's a quite famous feat. El Ninet also gives name to a sort of canyon / chimney, which allows even non-climbers to conquer the otherwise prohibitively steep rock wall, that can be seen when looking at Montserrat from the North. This canyon leads straight to the upper part of the Agulles sector, where numerous spires formed of conglomerate rock offer countless climbing routes. Today, Xavi and me tried us at "La Canal Del Ninet" and since we wanted to make the most of our day, our plan also foresaw to climb a very special rock column we had made out during a previous trip - La Filigrana.

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Xavi during his morning work-out

It was around 9 am when we started our walk from Can Maçana where we had parked the car. We followed the main walking path (GR-172, marked red-white) up to the point where a sign indicates the Vicenç- Barber-mountain-hut. At this point, we took a small path going straight on, following none of the main routes. After a short while it passes a steel beam that apparently was used to lift heavy goods up the mountain from the main path below, although I do not have the faintest idea whatfor, because nothing constructed or otherwise out of place could be seen. The path is not easy to follow, but since the general direction to take is quite obvious, we soon stood at the point where two ropes, hanging down from above, indicate the starting point of La Canal Del Ninet. After making much use of our atrophied biceps we successfully had overcome the first obstacle, which difficulty, to be honest, had taken me by surpise. Next to come was a pretty exposed approach to the point where the wall finally gives place to a cleft, big enough for bushes and trees to grow. By means of branches, trunks and roots, as well as some more fixed ropes and ledges we then made our way up.

One of the last obstacles

After about an hour of that we were in the vicinity of El Ninet, which, when climbed, makes for fantastic photos.

In front of El Ninet

El Ninet doesn't look impossibly difficult to summit. The problem is that no artificial belays can be seen and, maybe more distressing, that we could not make out whether the top is furnished with an abseil-point. Anyway, our day's aim was La Filigrana and a short walk later we were preparing our climbing gear at the starting point of the "Ot El Bruixot"-Route.

Route description from escalatroncs, our variation highlightened in red

Despite of the fact that the route does not state as many intermediate belay points as we may have liked, it somehow was appealing to us. This, I guess, is because of the vicinity of a continous line of small trees, which in case of necessity would have made as great anchors. Exept of some rotten holds, the first two pitches were quite easy (I doubt that a IV+ rate for the opener is correct) and Xavi went ahead, because I first wanted to "get into it" before taking the lead on my own. The third then was up to me and instantly confronted me with the most difficult section of the whole route. I believe it was not the climbing, but the fact that I did not see any possibility to secure the exit of this section, but fact is that after some tries, and much frustrated, I returned the lead role to Xavi.

Me on arrival

Xavi encountered the same problems as me and also was afraid of a pretty much unprotected fall, so he tried a bypass to his right hand side that makes its way between two trees and that I had made out (but left untried) during my fruitless attempt before. This time we were lucky, for Xavi even could make out a belay station of a neighbouring climbing line. By making use of this stand, he successfully avoided our ropes to get entangled with the trees.

It's a shame I'm well aware of, but again I left Xavi taking the lead. Without problems other than nervousness, caused by the permanent lack of intermediate belay points, he made his way further up and soon let me know I could follow him to the top. Finally, we stood on the summit of our most difficult "agulla" so far. The weather conditions were perfect and our joy tremendous. Two climbers who had just reached the top of a neighbouring crag called "Saca Gran" let us know that we made a great figure on our "filigree" spire, but soon it was time to prepare our way down.

The abseil point, it turned out, was located well behind the ridge and we soon convinced ourselves that it would be safer to abseil from the last belay station we'd made use of on our way up, in order to get down to terra firma. Back on the ground and after a final struggle with our stuck ropes we had some energy bars before making it back to the car just before dusk.

Xavi on top La Filigrana, Agulla De L'Arbret in the background