The Big Lad : Puig Campana

 

When I caught my first glimpse of the mighty Puig Campana, towering 1400 meters above me, the most impressive lump of rock on a coastline dotted generously with massive lumps of rock, I thought ... ''What have I gotten myself into''. I can still barely walk up a couple of flights of stairs without being knackered, but I can't let the accident hold me back forever so I wasn't going to find out if I could do it or not unless I gave it a lash to find out.

 

After a pleasant trip to the sports climbing area of Sella close-by Kev and I decided to have a final rest day before tackling the big lad and we were spoiled rotten with the weather for it. The day was spent lounging by the pool in 23 degrees loveliness and the evening was spent downing beers and lounging around the pool table in the town Finnestrat which is truly dwarfed by the mountain looming overhead. Got a shit sleep that night worrying about the climb and listening to a chorus of dogs whose barks were reverberating all over the valleys.

 

The big morning arrived and we left at dawn and met our guide up the town and headed straight up hill to the car park. We began the hike at sunrise and reached the base of the climb an hour and a half later. The ridge was colossal  looking and it was hard to believe that such an intimidating wall had a 13 pitch 4+ route going all the way to the top. That's the route we were taking ''Epsolon Central'', a true Spanish multi-pitch classic. When we were chilling in Siurana eating breakfast one morning a couple of weeks earlier Kev and I had stumbled upon an article in a Spanish climbing magazine about the top 10 classic climbs of Spain, ''Epsolon Central'' was right up the top of the list and now here we were about to get up on it and experience it :)

 

 

Me and Kev made a pact that if we were going to be mountaineers for the day, that we had to get our beard on !! So we weren't allowed to shave for the two and a half weeks of the trip. The result of this experiment produced two magnificent mountaineering beards and made our photographs look way more legit :)

 

The pitches were flying by and the climbing was really sweet and chilled out. I was letting the moves and the exposure soak in deep and the views as we kept getting higher kept getting better and better. ''This is fucking deadly ... Wo Hooo !!'' When we reached the top I was already knackered, but on a high for completing the climb. We still had over half of the work to do as the descent was really long and in parts treacherous. We eventually made it off the descent traverse a lot of which is a via ferrata and made it to the descent gully. Here we enjoyed scree running and sliding our way down to the trail at the bottom and the final hike out.

 

 

'Epsolon Central' was a fantastic experience and big - walling is something I know I want to do again in the future. Spain rules !! It truly has got it all. I've got a head full of sweet moments and memories to keep me going now through the winter whilst I am training and waiting for my next trip :)