el Carrer de la Fou

El carrer de la Fou has two main crevices, one wider than the other, named the “wide street” and the “narrow street”.

The “wide street” is the main crevice. The distance between entrance and exit is about 130 metres in a straight line. Access is via the SW end. The first stretch is quite full of vegetation. A few metres after entering, we find on the left a crevice 9 metres long that allows communication with the “narrow street”, although it hangs about 3 metres above its floor. A stretch follows where the “wide street” reaches its greatest width. Here, the lush vegetation limits our movements. We observe a chaos of large blocks that form passages between them. And so we reach the rock shelter. Very precarious, in a shady area. We observe there a small stone wall, as well as the beginnings of paving on the floor that we believe to be of recent construction since we do not remember it from our first visit made in 2012. From the rock shelter begins the straightest and best-marked stretch of the crevice, on an ascending route. Its average width is around 6 metres. The point of maximum depth of the crevice is around the rock shelter, although there is a great difference in height between the upper lip (about 27 m) and the lower one (around 10-12 m). In this stretch we find the bone remains of the dead animals that – in other times – those from the farm threw down from the upper part of the highest lip. Recent clearings have cleaned much of the vegetation that invaded this stretch.

The “narrow street” runs relatively parallel to the “wide street”, at a lower level. It is a narrower crevice that presents a discontinuous and irregular layout. In some stretches, the crevice is very well defined, but in others it is more diffuse, with imprecise limits. It is a crevice of difficult progression, since there are numerous blocks that in some cases partially obstruct it and that must be overcome. There is a difference in levels between the upper lip and the sunken lip, but of lesser extent than in the “wide street”. Here we find some underground stretches that in the survey we have called “covetes”. Fundamentally, there are two of these covetes, but the development is only a few metres.

To get there, the shortest route starts from the Bruguer farm, which is reached by a turnoff from the main track that, starting from El Brull, runs along the whole upper part of the Serra de l'Arca. From the NW side of the farm a descending path, not very marked, starts and in a little more than 10 minutes places us at the SW entrance of el Carrer de la Fou. It can also be reached starting from Aiguafreda de Dalt, but the route is longer and the paths are more confusing.

Access to the “wide street” is via the SW end. The “narrow street” is of difficult progression, since there are numerous blocks that in some cases partially obstruct it and that must be overcome.