The Pharaoh's vicinity

In the eye of the Pharaoh

Xavi and me had foreseen a combined activity consisting of struggling our way up one of Montserrat's gorges, denominated Torrent de les Grutes, do some climbing then and return to the car by rapelling down another canyon, but somehow we got lost as soon as we left the car behind. 
click here to read on

It's not that we didn't notice there was a field of olive trees where we'd expected to find a path, but as the well mannered wannabe climbers we are, the idea of trespassing other people's property didn't even cross our minds. Instead we looked for other paths, continously trying to connect them with the one we'd missed in the first place. Despite of the fact that we pretty soon saw there would be no connection to make, we continued our way. We were convinced that soon we would find other funny or interesting activities to do in that area of Montserrat, totally alien to us. 

After having followed a reasonable well marked path for a while, a steep torrent, partly overgrown with dense prickery vegetation seemed a sufficently funny substitute. By then we didn't have the faintest idea of where exactly we were when consulting our map, yet we didn't lose hope that once at a decent lookout point we would relocalise ourselves. Pruning shears in hand, Xavi took the lead, we struggled our way up and finally reached a col. Apart from a stunning view little more was offered to us. No landmarks we were able to pinpoint on the map nor any possibility that would lead down from the col on the far side of the ridge could be found. Were we not to return the same way we'd come up, our only option was to try following the ridge to the East. A short succession of minor summits, each adorned with a small heap of stones, gave way to a point from where we were able to make out an impressive rock column with a cave in it. We decided that it would be nice to reach that place.

View of the Pharaoh's eye, found here

Once in the vicinity of that column we saw it wasn't difficult at all to make it to the cave. We even could get there without having to make use of the rope and our harnesses. The cave surely would make for a great bivouac place, only that an important quantity of goat feces are to be found there. Since we didn't need no bivvy place, we had a picnic there. By then the both of us agreed that it had been a great idea to get lost.

Nice place for a picnic

Another look on the map revealed us the place of our localisation. The outstanding rock column we were sitting in that moment had to be one called El Farao. Then we also understood which was the torrent we had come up and, even better, where we would find an alternative possibility to get down again, hence enabling us to do a circular route.

Our way then led us toward two rock columns situated behind the Pharaoh, one being the Agulla de la Tempstat and the other denominated La Botella. A narrow col separates those rocks and we couldn't resist to go there just for the case there was something interesting to discover. A fixed rope helped us reaching it and indeed there was something catching our interest. Two shiny bolts indicated a climbing route going up the Agulla de la Tempestat. The climb didn't look prohibitively difficult (as the one we had seen on the far side) and soon we had taken out our ropes and put on our climbing gear.

Xavi went first and without problems made it to the second bolt. Then he couldn't make out more bolts and after a while decided that he didn't like the idea of facing a more difficult part without knowing whether he would find any possibility to secure himself. He abandoned a carabine and and I lowered him back to the col. I too took my chance because the climb further up didn't look that difficult, but once at the second bolt I too lost my guts. 

Guess which of these rocks is the Parrot!

For an hour or so we tried to reach another path indicated on our map, in order to make the circle of our circular route as big as possible, but unfortunately a not very high but rather steep wall denied us further advancement. Our way back to the car, hence, was the one he had made out during our picnic in the Pharaoh's Eye. As most walking paths in the Montserrat area, it did for a nice walk and furthermore offered us views of those faces of the Pharaoh we still hadn't seen. We even could make out two different rope teams about to summit it on different routes - the only people we had seen until then. By and large a cool day even if we hadn't done any of what we had come for.