This route, maybe the oddest I’ve ever done is located in the Alta Ribagorcia region of the Leridean Pyrenees;  A limestone area of deep canyons south of the main cordelliera in western Catalonia.  Being from Yosemite, and lazy,  it appealed to Bill and I  because it started from the road and didn’t look too hard. As it turns out  the Pic (Peak) wasn’t a Pic at all but a steep limestone fin that rose 3500 feet vertically from the river to end on a plateau where cows graze.  The climbing was only about 5.7 but that was okay because it was steep, continuous, rotten, exposed and unprotected.  Fortunately it was only about 50 pitches long so we started in the early afternoon.  There were  places where the ridge was only several inches wide and fell off  about a thousand feet to each side.  There being  few credible anchor points, we decided to treat it like an alpine snow ridge and agreed that if the leader fell off one side, the belayer, if awoken by the scream,  would simply launch himself off the other side to counterbalance.  :  )  ‘Could work.  Especially if  the belayer remembered to jump off the opposite side.

Looking up the valley to L’Pantano de Escales from low on the route.  The first pitch leads up a bolted slab out of a local climbing area.   There was a condom tied to the first bolt, about 25 feet up.   A Spaniard on a nearby short route looked over and explained simply,  “The French”.

Bill, engaged in the custormary pre-climb stare-down.

The forshortening effect makes the route look deceptively short from here.

Bill’s head is about the right size though.

The hours wear on and I consider the possibility of flying.

 “Hey! This one looks OK !”

……Bill finds another condom.

Bill.  Summit in background.  The absence of a register was understandable.  Why admit you’ve climbed this?

Maybe the longest and strangest rock (sorta) climb we’ve ever done and it ended up in a goddamn cow pasture.  ……I liked it though.

The descent was via a mile long scree chute.