Spain (4)

Montanejos was really just a name to me. I’m not sure if somewhere I had seen a photo of a climb here and been impressed, or had been told about it in passing by someone. On driving into the town I wasn’t even sure there was any climbing at all.

When we reached the tourist information office it was closed so we carried on through the town and reached El Refugio. This is a beautiful climbing refuge with camping space, bunkhouse and restaurant. Even though we were not staying and were looking for a place to park the truck, we felt very welcome and they were incredibly helpful. We bought a rudimentary guidebook and drove down to park by the river, a reputedly 25 degrees natural hot spring (not in December it wasn’t).



	We parked up next to a VW Camper from Austria which belonged to Josh and Elenora, two climbers on tour who we were to end up on an excellent adventure with. That evening they both came over to the van for a couple of beers and brought with them a game called Carcassone. Having visited the city we were fascinated to see what it was about and ended up playing for hours. A big recommendation. We did a huge climb the next day.

	I guess everyone at home thinks that whilst travelling, Jools and I spend a lot of time loafing around and generally relaxing. That was part of the plan, but if it’s not in your nature, then you always find plenty to do. For example, the day after the big climb, we decided to do nothing but read and relax. Halfway through the day and I’m needing something to do, so I take out the front seats and remove the engine cover to replace the points and adjust the timing (under direction from Pete on the phone in Ramsbottom). I then remove the fridge to get at the invertor to wire in an external switch. It’s funny but it is hard to find the time to do these niggly jobs between everything else (I can hear you all sympathising at home, violins out).

					The idea for the big adventure came from a poster in the window of the tourist information in Montanejos. A 5m cubed mass of rock, jammed across a narrow gorge, above a deep pool of water, with climbing holds bolted underneath to make an overhanging 6a boulder problem. We asked three different people how to find it and were given three different answers. So we hooked up with Josh and Nora, and took it on ourselves to find it, and climb it. Josh and Nora had walked up the gorge as far as they could without swimming two days previous and had not seen it. Thus being the case we decided to drive off using an appalling map from the Info office to find the source of the gorge. We parked up at a village called Los Calpes in Josh’s Scooby-doo mystery bus. As we walked though the village the sound of Christmas carols got louder and louder and when we reached the square there was a crowd of people around a Christmas tree. It somehow felt out of place, but then nothing compared to the decorated bush with presents under it we had in Tsavo, Kenya 2004. We picked up a trail down one of the valleys which seemed to wind further, until we came to a small ford which we accessed to be the beginning of the river into the gorge. We took the path alongside, and followed until it rose high above the river. Looking down we couldn’t quite see all of the bottom but it didn’t look too hopeful. We carried on. Finally the path descended to the gorge and we had to choose, up or down?

	The general consensus was to carry on down as we hadn’t seen anything promising from above. Five kilometres further down we reached the point of no return and the pool that Josh and Nora had been on the other side of previously. We had two choices swim and walk down to Montanejos, or walk back up the gorge.

	Undeterred we headed back up the gorge to where we entered, and then carried on up further to where we had not been before. It was several more kilometres of rock-hopping and bush-whacking before turning the corner late in the day to see the object of our quest.

Only one problem now reared its ugly head. The only way to get to the boulder and pass it to exit the gorge was to traverse along the wall above the pool on small holds with several grand of video and camera equipment in a rucksack.

No one was willing to take that risk so a new plan was hatched. Josh stripped to shorts and t-shirt and traversed to the boulder to check out the exit route, it looked ok, just a squeeze through under the boulder. I stripped to t-shirt and atrocious black pants to traverse to a shelf, half way along. The plan now was for Nora and Jools to strip to skimpies and wade into the water holding the bags above their heads and pass them to me (note girls get into freezing water, boys do the climbing thing).

As Nora approached me it was apparent that the water was getting too deep and as she reached me she was treading water, arms stretched above and head under the freezing water. I grabbed the bag, she surfaced and swam for the ledge, Josh pulled her out and I passed him the first bag. It now dawned on me that as Nora was at least 6” taller than Jools and there would be no way she could do the same, as the rucksack was twice the size and weight, and contained the cameras. I knew I would have to swim.

I traversed back and Jools swam to the ledge. I walked into the water holding the bag aloft. Josh was at the ready but the sac was so heavy I knew I couldn’t swim with it. As the water rose I took a deep breath and walked towards the ledge. I remember looking up though the surface pleading that the weight would lift and free me to swim, but Josh was struggling to reach and in the last moment before my breath gave out he pinched the material of the lid of the sack and in a huge effort raised it to the ledge. I swam the shivering doggy paddle of a frozen man. Like a baby seal I landed myself on the slippery ledge slapping for holds.

Between us we inched the bag along the ledge and through the hole under the boulder. We were all through, it felt like some idiotic team building exercise, which we had accomplished together, and if so, we made a great team.

We headed out of the gorge only now finding the path we should have taken in the first place. Oh, and did we climb the boulder, of course we did, but that’s irrelevant.