Barranc del gurb (Gurps canyon) 12/06/2016

Summer is starting, the weather is good and I have free time so it's the moment to do outdoor activties. Today I tried something new, canyoning. Some friends had said that canyoning was something one must try and they invited me to join them on their next canyoning session.

The canyon we did was the Gurp canyon which is close to Sort, Catalonia. We did it with the help of a guide, Lluís Beardo from http://barrankisme.com/ . He was a really good guide, giving confidence in the rappels and providing a lot of information from the rock formations and the wildlife.

I have to say that canyoning was a great experience. We started walking up a trail around 30 minutes and then we entered into the canyon. There we put our helmets, neoprene suit and started to enjoy. When swimming arms and legs (even feet because we where wearing special socks) were warn but hands where pretty cold but tolerable.

We kept doing rappels, small water jumps and simple climbing when we were told. I hadn't use a neoprene in lots of years and it surprised me how well it isolated legs and arms from the cold water.

4 hours later we finished the canyon. We changed to normal clothes again and walked a bit more than 30 minutes to get back to where we left the car.

Congost De Mont-Rebei 10/08/2015

New motorbike and hiking trip. This one is a bit special as it's shorter than usual but at the end we are able to take a path in the lake. The path is, however, narrow, rocky and with lots of ups and downs.

We start the trip in El pont the Suert, as the last, one and we head to Pont de Montanyana following the N-230. After reaching the later we must cross a bridge and follow some "paved" roads. The N-230 is amazing to ride with the motorcycle, full of turns, great asphalt and not many cars. You may find some trucks but they are easy to take over.

After arriving to the Congost de Mont-Rebei's parking they ask us to pay 4 euros for each car and 4 euros for every two motorbike. It's not going to happen as we park the motorbikes some meters away of the parking and walk this lasts meters.

From that point the hiking starts. It takes around 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to the swimming place. As usual the GPS decided no to take the track of the path. Because we wanted to take a bath at the end of the walk the hiking started at 3.30pm, one of the worst hours, the sun was killing us.

The views of the mountains were spectacular. And some parts of the hiking paths looked like they were taken from films. At the end of the hiking we took the well gained bath and after a couple hours headed back to the parking.

In the way back we decided to take a look into a deep cave. To get there some easey climbing was needed nothing super dangerous as there where lots of place to put the hands. The cave was huge but we only got the light from the mobile flash so we didn't go much deep inside it. I want to go there again with some decent light and explore it.

Views from the cave.

After finishing the hiking back to the parking we had to re-do the initial motorbike trip. This time we couldn't have as much fun because it was getting darker (it was already 9 p.m) and some animals could jump into the road.