Adventure #236

ADVENTURE
CLIMBING
IN SPAIN
THE ROAD
LESS
TRAVELLED
Words and photos by Derek Cheng
I winced in agony. I’d tumbled down a part of the
trail that was, embarrassingly, not difficult. In my
haste to rush towards a tantalisingly delicious
300m-wall of orange-streaked limestone, I’d
rolled my ankle—badly. As I waited for the pain to
subside enough to stop clenching my eyes shut,
I knew it was probably best to head back to camp
and rest.
But we were on the road, in a remote part of
Spain, for the first time since the world was
gripped in the Covid pandemic. We had driven a
day to arrive at Mont-Rebei, a dramatic canyon
with imposing 300m walls of limestone rising up
on both sides of a river. And we were time-limited,
having to return our rental car to Barcelona in a
couple of days.
In other words, it was a ‘carpe diem’ scenario.
Having had my share of unexpected accidents, I
was prepared for such scenarios, and was soon
swallowing ibuprofen and tramadol pills. It was
another half hour to the base of the cliff, and
by the time we arrived, there were already six
climbers ahead of us. We weren’t very prepared
for this, having been told that Mont-Rebei was a
‘no picnic’ climbing destination, and would likely
be deserted. (We later learned that we’d arrived in
the middle of a national four-day holiday weekend,
hence the crowd.)
Luckily, the last climber in the conga line gave us
a map for a nearby route - called Delfos - which
we humbly accepted. We scrambled higher to
arrive at the base, my ankle by now having burst
from the swell-gate. But with tramadol vibes
humming through my veins, we started up the
wall.
It was soon obvious that this was ‘adventure
climbing’, a euphemism for climbing loads and
loads of fragile rock. Climbers tend to prefer solid
rock, given that the last thing they want is to pull
off a handhold and be airborne, with nothing but
the rope to prevent them from free-falling to the
ground. We were happy to quickly pass the only
other party on the route, thankful they hadn’t
accidentally thrown any rocks on us from above.
The limestone cliffs of Siurana are known for
6//WHERE ACTIONS demanding SPEAK technical LOUDER climbing THAN on tiny WORDS/#236 holds