Climbing the Sa Brexta tower in Sa Calobra

Trad climbing in stunning scenery far, far out my comfort zone

Besides the ridiculously beautiful and engineered road leading down from the Tramuntana mountains right to the seaside and the Torrent de Pareis, the narrow gorge that terminates at the same place as the road, Sa Calobra boasts some huge walls and rock features as well.

Right beside the road right after a very narrow passage stands the about 50 meters high Sa Brexta tower. And tower is the right word: it is more or less rectangular with three sides being super steep and overhanging and only the east face looking more climbable. There are some traditional two rope length routes in that face but there is little information online about them. We picked the (supposedly) easiest line and scrambled up to the start from the road to start what would become a bit of an odyssey.

The original plan was for me to climb up to the first stance, belay Brigitte up and then go up to the top - should have been pleasant and not too hard at the given grade of French 4 even on a trad climb (e.g. with no bolts)?!?! Well it was not. I started off on the first pitch and made good progress for the first 20 meters and then hit a hard section over a ledge which I could not protect. After messing around for 20 minutes we decided to abort the climb and I downclimbed and cleaned the protection points I had built.

Back on the ground I honestly was super frustrated that I was not able to get past that section and after some back and forth with Brigitte we decided that I would give it another try and this time try to link the two pitches to the top. On the second try I got through the hard bit by placing a small cam is a crack that I could only see after getting a bit higher than on the first try.

Shortly after the first first stance was reached and according to the new plan I went on through a 10 meter chimney noticing that the rope drag started to get very annoying - however the final slaby bit to the top was in sight. After the chimney you have to step out far to the right onto that slab and now the rope drag was getting so bad that I had to pull with all I had to even get moving - exactly what you need on a slab! After a lot of grunting and trying not to think about the last protection being at least 5 meters lower I got to a tree about 2 meters from the top and the 60 meter rope ran out - was shaking all over and took a few moments to compose myself. The climbing police might disagree but I call this a summit success!

But the ordeal was not over yet: I tried to pull up the rope to set up a rappel on the tree but the drag was so horrible now that I could not get it to move. The solution: First fixing the rope to the tree, second rappelling that single strand to the first belay and cleaning the protection, third climbing back up top rope solo and finally rappelling properly on two strands back down to the first stance. Sometimes you need to get creative I guess.

Setting up the second rappel down to the ground the stress levels normalized and as I started down I collected what I thought was the final piece of gear I placed on the way up - only to notice about 15 meters above the ground that I forgot to clean a cam ABOVE the first stance - so a good bit higher up. You can fill in the expletives that might have been heard echoing through surrounding mountains in your head!

So back up to the stance and some trickery later I got back the cam and finally could get back to the ground. In the end the whole thing took about two and half hours, a lot of sweat and a few stern discussions with my inner fear demons. I am happy to have done this climb but it was definitely far, far out of the comfort zone at times!

For more information on this climb take a look at the Mallorca Adventure Guide!

Adventurers: Brigitte and Bengt