Montserrat, only 30 minutes by car (35km) from Barcelona offers some of the best single- and multi-pitch routes in Spain. There are 13 major rock-climbing areas what you can choose from. Now I will take a look at Collbató.

The sector named Collbató is situated on the south side of Montserrat. It is ideal for winter climbing. Most of the area has all day sun and little wind. In the summer this area can be very hot. The rock quality is good. In the last years it has been equipped with a large number of routes, especially easy ones, and whole new sectors. In fact, today Collbató is possibly the most visited area of Monserrat, thanks to the quality of rock, high number of easy routes and proximity to parking. You can be sure that any weekend the areas of Cam Nou Barris or Els Graus will be full of people, hence those who enjoy tranquility better choose other destinations.

I usually go to the area Cam Nou Barris and Segon Pis, where you can find rocks from grade 4 until 7. The first area is more popular as I mentioned. It could be because the rock is pretty good for climbing and on one wall you have a lot of similar routes in grade. So you can warm up with 4-5s and then move on for the 6s. ‘Placa del Pi’ and ‘Totxo de L’Oscar’ are my favorite rocks.

In the Segon Pis sector you can also find a variety of well-maintained walls, where you can go also in winter time, usually it’s sunny on that side.

Stay tuned for the next sector in Montserrat! Also I will write about other areas around Barcelona, like Garraf or Vilafranca. I feel lucky to live in the beautiful Barcelona, because it is surrounded by a lot of good climbing places. You can surely call it the climbing capital of Europe.