Turó de Mal Pas

Diversion dam at Torre del Breny

My personal map of exploration has one white speck less. Last Sunday I made it to a place I had wanted to visit for quite a while: el Turó del Mal Pas - The Bad Step Hill. 
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This 753m high hill is located close to a long abandoned estate known as Puigdoure, well within the natural Park of St. Llorenç de Munt i l'Obac. In order to get there, I first made a little detour, as I normally do, so to avoid unnecessary biking on the country road which connects my village with the neighboring. But this time, I tried a variation of the detour, a detour within the detour so to say, which turned out to be of interest, too: by cycling on the retaining wall between the Llobregat River and a channel which back then fed a local textile factory with water, I got straight to a weir, which offered me an uncommon sight of the the river just downstream the confluence with Cardener River.

Later, on my way up to Can Padre Estate, I was overtaken by a car with an elderly married couple in it, who asked me for indications to the chapel of Santa Creu de Palou. My services as a guide were barely needed, however, since we already were very close the sacral building they were heading for. When I got to the chapel, they just had parked their car and we started a conversation. It turned out that the two of them didn't want to worship no gods, but were interested in the building itself. They actually were experts on Romanesque temples and run a website which aims at cataloguing the complete heritage of Catalan Romanesque churches. The purpose of their visit was to snap some pictures of Santa Creu de Palou so to add them to their online catalogue.

Step back: Expert at work

I decided to join them for a while, observing and asking stupid questions and even managed to learn a little bit about Romanesque architecture.

Then it was time to go on. A very long and exhausting uphill section led me past El Farrell, and after some time towards Puigdoure.

Farrell estate, Ermitanets hill range in the background

Just short of the latter outpost, I left my path for a while and did another detour, which in no time took me to an excellent lookout point above yet another estate known as Matarodona. A Catalan flag flies there next to a summit cross, and one can even write something into a kind of summit book. 

At Roca de Matarodona, Morella hill in the background

Back at Puigdoure, I got sight of my destination: Turó del Mal Pas. The hill does not stand out because of its absolute height, but rather because it's easily distinguishable: firstly, it's bare of vegetation and secondly has three relatively exposed rock walls. From the South, however, it's easily accessible; not so by bike maybe, but to summit it on foot doesn't face the eager excursionist with any difficulties. 

Turó del Mal Pas as seen from Puigdoure

It wasn't until close to the top that I was hit by the cold wind that had been fore casted for the day. Due to the wind dried air, however, I was able to enjoy extraordinarily clear views into all directions. I saw that El Turó del Mal Pas not only serves as a good point of reference when seen from other places, but it also allowed me to make visual connections between different areas of the Natural Park, I had visited at different times. 

Snow covered Pyrenees to the horizon as seen from Turó del Mal Pas