Adventure in Montserrat

We decided to have an adventurous day in Montserrat and taste into the very basics of mountain climbing with the help of our professional leader, Balázs. So we met in the morning at Barceloneta in a bar, and we were all very excited while sipping our morning coffee. All of us had already been to Montserrat several times, but never tried the climbing with helmets, harnesses and ropes. Till this moment we just walked up where we could on foot and just glimpsed up to the top of the mountain like to a place that is simply not achievable for us.

We parked the car and passed the famous Monostery of Montserrat: our target was much upper, out of the civilization, on the land of the climbers. It started with a little steep walk up till the bottom of the peak called Gorro de Frigi. This was the point where via ferrata started, so we all got on the security harness, helmet and we received a short overview from Balázs about the very basics of climbing.

Here the landscape changed a lot: basically it was an almost vertical rocky mountain peak with some chains to help us climb up here. So we started to ascend, carefully putting our tracking shoes to the tiny gaps of the mountain and grapping the chains and ropes in the meanwhile. Some of us just kind of run up on the wall like a chamois, I personally felt a mix of excitement and fear, so I concentrated very hard not to look down and moved very slowly only, part of me already waiting for the moment when at the end of the day we will celebrate our adventure with a beer.

But we managed to climb up, and it was a fantastic feeling arriving to the top of Frigi, looking around to the deepness surrounding us. Cheese, bread and olive never tastes so good as on an occasion like this, with a view like the one we had. This is exactly the feeling that we are on the top of the world and we are as small as a mustard seed…

When descending we were much quicker and more experienced already, so our legs barely trembled this time… and when getting down and after some tracking in the muddy hillside we arrived at the next adventure: to an almost vertical, long wall where we were to descend with the help of Balázs and the climbing accessories.

We simply had to jump over the fence next to the road and walk down on the wall while the rope held our body and weight. This was a piece of cake, we really just had to make sure that we hold the legs in the proper angle against the wall, trust in the security ensured by the ropes and enjoy the freedom of hanging in the nothing

After all these we got back to Barcelona at the end of the day with lot of new experiences and fun. Even if it was a very basic level of climbing, we were all proud of us. Some of us was kind of scared at some moments (like me), and we all managed to overtook our fears and widen our limits!

Thank you for the amazing experience Balázs!