Finding home through the climbing crags near Barcelona

My climbing suffered, but I found community and much more at Vallirana, Gelida, Grau de Maxtos, Can Marcer, and others.

When I first moved to Barcelona a year ago, I had to accept that my plans to renovate an old stone house in the country—and have a world-class climbing mecca just a few minutes drive up the hill—would have to wait.

I thought by now I might be a shredded crusher sending hard test pieces around Spain, with a fully-renovated townhouse in the heart of the Catalunyan countryside—

Well, that didn’t happen, not yet. But I did find a community of climbers and much more. I found my people. And I did it through the climbing crags around Barcelona.

I. My plans go awry

Just to catch up new readers: In November 2022, I took what turned out to be a magical climbing trip to Siurana, which surely must rank as one of the top five or ten sport climbing areas in the world. I didn’t expect to fall so in love with the Catalunyan countryside (which reminded me of my birthplace in New Mexico) or the small town of Cornudella de Montsant, where we stayed nearby, but fall in love I did.

My long search for a home base somewhere in Southern Europe came to an end on that trip, and a few months later I closed on a four-level rowhouse in need of a complete renovation. After working on my homestead in New Hampshire, I was excited for more. Not to mention I would have another world-class climbing area right out my back door.

But I put all that on hold when plans for my son to do a homestay in Germany suddenly fell through. The family friends who had offered to host him in Munich couldn’t. Instead, I started negotiating with his mom to bring him to Spain. His mom thankfully agreed—on the condition that I find an international school he would be excited to attend.

Eventually, I found LearnLife, in the center of Barcelona. It’s a place where he’s thrived, immediately making friends among students and faculty, finding new freedom to move around the city by himself, and seizing opportunities for new experiences and more travel (a school trip to Rwanda, for example).

I had finally sprung him from the conformity of the Washington D.C. area.

Meanwhile, for me, this past year in Barcelona has been unexpected and incredible—tough to sum up without superlatives. It’s a phenomenal city, “leisure and pleasure made manifest in a half-planned, half-medieval, modernist, paternal, liberal Catalan city,” as I recently wrote, with the ocean on one side and mountains on the other.

I’m not even a city person—but if a city were to make me a believer, this might very well be the one.

All of this aside, coming to Barcelona forced me to alter not just plans for the renovation, but my climbing goals as well. I’m not complaining. In fact, Barcelona has more access to both the sea and the mountains than any cosmopolitan European city has any right to have.

I knew, for example, that one could be at the jaggy, totally unique saw-toothed spires of Montserrat, in less than an hour on the train. There are several lifetimes of climbing just there, and in lieu of proximity to Siurana, I had assumed I would be getting to know Montserrat quite well.

What I hadn’t expected—what I really had no idea—was just how many different climbing crags there are. From Barcelona, you can drive in nearly any direction and happen upon limestone or conglomerate, or granite cliffs tucked up against small mountains adjacent to picturesque Catalan towns. The longer I lived here, the wider the circle of climbing friends I developed, the more crags I discovered.

And just when I thought I’d visited them all, I found one more, one that felt like a “home” crag in a way the others hadn’t.

But let’s start at the beginning.

II. Les Casetes de Vallirana (My first climbing friends)

Of all the challenges of moving to another country, most people put at or near the top of their list the challenge of finding a strong community.

Digital nomads gather in coffee shops and co-work spaces in the hopes of connecting with heads buried in laptops. Message boards about expat living and digital nomadism bemoan the isolation, the outright loneliness. Women note the lack of deep connections they experience, while men wonder why the dating apps aren’t working for them.

And language schools host a constant stream of social outings precisely to fill this deep need for social connection. (I’ve written about all this before. See, Why you should stay in place).

Most people who find themselves lucky enough to be location-independent in their work over-emphasize the pursuit of freedom, only to wake up years later wondering why they haven’t found a partner, or why a sustained “community” is so damn hard and takes so long.

But I’ve never been able to join this chorus of lament. Because I have climbing, and climbing solves all this.

During the first few months in Barcelona, people would ask how my son was fitting in, and I would reply: great, because he loves his school. Then they would ask how I’m fitting in, and I would say: well, I have climbing, and all the community that comes with it.

Before moving, I’d joined all the Barcelona climbing Facebook groups I could find. A few weeks after I arrived, I saw an invitation from one of the group’s moderators to connect with other climbers.

This is how I met Kevin, a friendly Frenchman who had been living in Barcelona for several years along with his wife. Kevin was the moderator and ran a climbing website called Climbing House, which I promptly looked up after we met at the climbing gym one afternoon. It’s a great site, with trip reports, reviews, and guides.

Soon after we met, Kevin invited me to join a small group for a day trip to Les Casetes de Vallirana.

It’s only a 45-minute drive from the city, with about a 15-minute approach to the crag. Vallirana is known for its abundance of short, easy routes, which means it’s often packed with beginners. That wasn’t me, but no matter—I was overjoyed to be in the mountains, with a friendly group, pulling on real rock.

It had been just over a month since moving to Spain.

III. Bloc District (And how my climbing started to suffer)

Kevin and his group were the first climbing friends I made in Spain. But alongside were people I met at Bloc District, the bouldering gym where I signed up for monthly membership.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to climb outdoors the way I had in New Hampshire, where the cliffs are within walking distance of my house. There, it was possible to work a full day, run some errands, and still have time to pop over to the crags and pull hard on a few routes.

As a result of that beautiful privilege, my climbing ability dramatically improved. The year before moving to Spain, at 40 years old, I was climbing the strongest I ever had. Toward the end of 2022, I red-pointed (climbed on lead, with no falls or rests) Anaconda da Vida, a 12d (7c)—the highest grade of my life.

But in Barcelona, my climbing began to suffer. Bloc District only had bouldering—no roped climbing—and bouldering has never been my strong suit. To begin with, it’s easy to injure yourself on short, powerful routes, where the whole point is to try the same really hard moves over and over. Aside from that, I found it difficult to motivate myself without the lure of a long, beautiful piece of rock above me.

But Bloc District did have a spray wall—long, overhanging, stuffed with holds where you can improvise longer circuits. The idea is to simulate the longer, pump-inducing routes you find outdoors, and thus keep up your endurance.

The spray wall at Bloc District in Barcelona

Still, I struggled.

Climbing has exploded over the past decade, and that’s as true in Barcelona as anywhere. If anything, the phenomenon is even more recent in Spain. Gyms are packed with beginners, and beginners usually don’t go to “train” in the way I was aiming at.

I just wanted to pull hard on overhanging crimps and slopers until my forearms couldn’t stand it any longer.

Still, I tried to be social. I wanted to find more climbing partners, after all.

IV. Grau de Maxtos, Gelida, Garraf, and Sant Llorenç del Munt

At the gym, my climbing circle grew.

I met an Italian woman, Fran, and we immediately clicked. She didn’t have a lot of time to climb outdoors, but we were on the same gym schedule. She had a young kid, so she would come while he was at daycare, and I would come while my son was at school.

Soon, she started working at the gym, and it felt almost like I was local nodding to her on my way in, saying hi, catching up, not having to tell anyone my name so they could look up my membership.

I also met an Italian crusher named Julian. He’d just moved to Barcelona for work, and after training together one day we traded info and started climbing outdoors. Julian reminded me of Jordi, my Catalan climbing friend who had organized the trip to Siurana. Both are super strong, absolutely committed to climbing, so personable that they attract a wide group of friendly, good-vibes-only kind of climbing community.

Between Julian and Kevin, I always had a group to climb with on the weekends, and together we started sampling the various crags.

• At Grau de Maxtos, about a 1-hour drive from Barcelona, I got a little bit of everything. It’s interesting rock, with a mix of moderate routes, slightly stiff grading, and a killer view of the valley below. On hot days in Barcelona, it’s a good bet Grau will be significantly cooler.

• Gelida, even closer, is about a 45-minute drive, and quickly became one of my favorite spots. Its limestone streaks of orange and black and crimpy face-climbing were a lot like Siurana. The only drawback is it’s a relatively small crag. You might climb it out after a half dozen outings.

• For harder routes (7a - 8c), we drove to Gran Pared at Sant Llorenç de Munt. It’s a 45-minute drive, but also a 40-minute hike up on the approach. But the views are wonderful, and it’s in the shade in the afternoon, and you’ll be among super-good climbers.

• One of the places that grew on me is Garraf, only a 30-minute drive from Barcelona and perched directly above the sea. There’s little shade, and lots of polish on the easy routes, but there’s also a tall cave with some classic 7s where you can escape the sun. And the view is hard to beat.

Climbing at Garraf, near Barcelona

V. A mentee for me—a close friend for my son

Early on I resolved to drag my son with me to the crags.

Core to my feelings about parenting is the idea that one should not arrange your entire daily and weekly schedule around your kids. Instead, I believe it’s important for them to see their parents pursuing their passions, rather than to be seen sacrificing their passions for whatever it is the kids think they want just then.

Thus, I struck a balance with my son. He wasn’t particularly excited to go climbing, but he would go sometimes. He would do a few routes, try to make conversation with my friends (mostly about soccer and FC Barcelona), and then play on his iPad for a bit. He was pretty bored a lot of the time, and he got easily frustrated with climbing, but at least he was outdoors.

This changed when we met András.

It was during one of our usual Friday afternoons at the beach, where my kid played volleyball, and I drank beer, socialized, and sometimes played volleyball.

It was there I overheard this young kid, maybe 24, talking in an Eastern European accent (Hungarian) about how he was in Barcelona for a semester for Erasmus, and how he mainly wanted to rock climb in whatever spare time he had. We exchanged info, and he became a regular with the group I met through Kevin.

In fact, in that group of mainly beginners, it was only András who wanted to climb the same hard stuff I did. He’d only been climbing a short time, but he had an obvious fire inside him for improving. He could usually follow the climbs that I led, and occasionally he could even do some hard, bouldery move that I couldn’t. His strength was bouldering, power, and youth. I could offer experience.

I started teaching him everything I’d learned over my last four years of dramatic improvement. How to project routes. How to choose goals. What to focus on. He soaked it up.

Meanwhile, my son took to him immediately. Among all my climbing friends, András was both the youngest, and the most into talking about soccer (ahem, football).

Dragging my son climbing suddenly became much easier—is András coming? he would immediately ask. And he always was.

On our last climbing trip together, a long weekend to Siurana, I belayed as András red-pointed his first-ever 7a. As he clipped the chains at the end of the climb, he let out a joyous victory scream. It was more emotion than I’d ever seen from him. I was so proud. In just a few months, he’d improved dramatically, and this was a milestone to prove it.

Sometimes people would mistake András for my younger brother. He was tall, brown hair, a little gangly, handsome, with a nice smile. But in fact, as he told me one evening after his going away dinner, it was my son who András started to think of as a little brother. He didn’t have any brothers himself, but he’d always wanted one. My son, he told me, had been like the little brother he’d never had.

It made my heart very warm.

On the bus on the way back to our neighborhood, I watched the two of them laughing and talking about football, as always. My son can be very affectionate with people he likes—throughout dinner he’d been leaning on András, putting his hand on his shoulder, soaking up what little time he had left.

We got off the bus, and András, taller by at least a foot, put his arm around my son’s shoulder. They walked like that, talking, back to Mercat de Sant Antoni, where we parted ways with long hugs.

András said that climbing with me the past few months had been the best part of his experience in Barcelona. I told him he’d always have a climbing partner, any time.

VI. More than community (Penyes de Can Marcer)

You’re very lucky, Fran told me one evening.

We’d seen so much of each other in the gym—now we were out having a glass of wine to socialize like normal people. We tried to talk about things other than climbing.

Not that many people find someone, she said.

Fran was talking about my girlfriend. I’ve been seeing her for six months—but in fact we’d met months earlier, on that very first trip to Vallirana with Kevin.

Karen had been a part of the group when I got there, and at first, we were just friends—I never expected it would be more. But we climbed together often. I saw how she related to people. I saw her kindness and generosity, her curiosity, her empathy and openness, her passion not just for climbing but for life in general. She helped me improve my Spanish (she’s Colombian), and I helped her improve her climbing.

Then, somewhat mysteriously, I found myself really missing her. She’d been away for a work trip and hadn’t been climbing with us recently. Her absence was a hole in our climbing community, but slowly, cautiously, I realized it was something even more than that for me. When she returned in December, I asked her to dinner. I shared my feelings. We kissed.

Actually—I don’t think it’s that I’m lucky, I told Fran. I begged her patience while I explained what I thought had really happened.

I’d moved to a place where other people move for the same reasons as me. I’d spent most of my free time pursuing a deep passion, rock climbing, and had met others who shared that passion. In fact, I’d done exactly what the dating coaches say to do, which is to get off the apps and spend your time pursuing activities you love.

It wasn’t luck. We had each put ourselves in the place we wanted to be in life, and we’d found each other there.

As Winter turned to Spring, and Spring to early Summer, Karen mentioned yet another crag we’d had yet to visit. It was a towering, 40-meter cliff carved into the side of a small mountain not far from her apartment. Crucially for the impending heat of Summer, it was north-facing—which meant it was in the shade nearly the entire day. This made it a rare find among climbing crags near Barcelona, most of which are at least partially south-facing.

Penyes offered a respite, a way to keep climbing even though it was getting hot. Eventually, the two of us found a spare day to go check it out.

We pulled off the highway into a small community tucked into a little valley surrounded by hillsides. The houses reminded me of a partially off-grid community in New Mexico—solar panels on the rooftops, mini wind turbines in the yard, large, overgrown gardens and fruit trees. It looked like a slightly messy, entirely unplanned eco-village. Peering between slats in the fences, I saw lots of outdoor spaces for eating, cooking, and socializing.

Then there was the terrain. It was almost like a temperate rainforest. In stark contrast to the dry, open landscape throughout Catalunya, this little enclave was overgrown with vegetation. Vines covered everything. Water was abundant. The crescent-shaped hills seemed to be catching it, making every space that wasn’t actively cut back thick with plants and shrubs.

When we got to the trailhead for the crag, we saw a sign: climbing closed until June. Bird nesting. We looked around. There was wildlife everywhere. On a later trip, we saw a family of wild boars suddenly tear across one of the dirt roads in the village. The whole place was like a little haven tucked away, out of sight, little-known. We walked to the cliff anyway, touched the rock, gazed up at the cliffs, and marveled at how much undeveloped rock there was yet to climb.

I’d been living in Barcelona for ten months before I finally climbed at Penyes. But it already had the feeling of a home crag away from home. It felt like we’d discovered something together.

This Summer and Fall I will return to New Hampshire. Then I will come back and finally turn my attention to the renovation project in Cornudella de Montsant. From then on, Siurana will be my actual home crag.

But Penyes definitely captured my romantic imagination. The little, disorganized eco-village. The fortuitous, day-long shade, a respite from the Summer heat. And the huge swath of undeveloped cliff, still waiting for someone to clear back the vegetation, waiting for a creative mind to envision new climbing routes, waiting for hours upon monotonous hours cleaning the rock, drilling holes, placing bolts.

Waiting for someone to leave a part of their legacy there.

The tall, wild, partially-developed cliffs of Penyes de Can Marcer