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Cova de Sant Jeroni

Cova de Sant Jeroni

Esquerda ascendent a la paret de Sant Jeroni (Montserrat), al municipi de Marganell

Marganell • Bages48m25m

An ascending fissure on the Sant Jeroni wall, in Montserrat, in the municipality of Marganell. Known since time immemorial and also called Escletxa del Moro.

Characteristics

Location

Ascending fissure on the Sant Jeroni wall (Montserrat), in the municipality of Marganell.

We will leave the car at the old lower station of the Sant Jeroni cable car, we go up the asphalt ramp that starts beside the road to head for the uphill stretch that in a few minutes brings us to the camí de l'Arrel.

We take the direction of the cable car wall to reach a small bend where we will begin to climb up the torrent de l'escletxa del Moro; the start is very obvious, a boulder-strewn gully that we will have to scramble up, until we find some more complicated sections with fixed ropes, which we will follow, to which a via ferrata cable is then added. This is the route used by climbers for the approach to most of the routes on the cable car wall.

Once past the ropes, we will have to follow the base of the wall to the left in an ascending direction. We will reach a more vertical zone, having to overcome a step by scrambling up a few rather complicated metres. Suddenly we enter a large and spectacular cave.

Approximate coordinates.

Mapa

Entrances

Always verify coordinates and access conditions before setting out.

  1. Sant Jeroni, Cova de

    Elevation: 920 m

    41.605340, 1.817240
    UTM 31T (ED 50) 401537 4606840
Download all entrances as GPX

Photos

Cova de Sant Jeroni - Photo, Marganell, BagesView image
Click to enlarge

Espeleoindex · CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ · Image © its author.

Image 1 of 7

Description

Morphology

The entrance presents itself as a fissure about 15 metres high by 2 wide; once past the upper conduit it is flat and gains a little width.

Inside we see enormous stone blocks in precarious balance.

Speleothems

The entire floor is covered by a stalagmitic flow.

Progression

Next we will have to carefully climb an ascending gallery about 45º in inclination and about 10 metres with no protection (IV+), where there is a short 4-metre rope in the upper zone.

A final section can be done by climbing 20 m up a slab where we will find up to 4 belays and which will bring us to a small natural balcony from which we can admire this very special cavity.

A rusty chain with a carabiner makes the descent easier. All that remains is to abseil back down the way we came up (we will find installations with mallon).

History

Known since time immemorial, but without arousing any speleological interest. Father Guiu-Camps, a monk of the Abbey of Montserrat, in an interview with members of the GE Pedraforca in 1971, mentions to them an escletxa al funicular de Sant Jeroni, and they, without visiting it, include it in the Montserrat catalogue (1974) as Cova de Sant Jeroni. The first exploration that we know of is that of members of the GES-CMB in May 1976, during the cataloguing work for volume 3 of the Catálogo espeleológico de la provincia de Barcelona, which was never published.

It seems that climbers know it as Escletxa del Moro.

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Bibliography

  1. Mor, Jordi; Gargallo, Ricard (1974).- “Catàleg Espeleològic de Montserrat (Operació Montserrat -71)”. Speleon (21): 137-145. Centre Excursionista de Catalunya. Barcelona
  • Primeres dades i topografia inèdita de l'arxiu GES - CMB
  • Actualització de dades i fotografies (gener 2023) extretes del blog: montserratendins.blogspot (de Robert Corell)

Source: Espeleoindex (espeleoindex.com), modified. CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/