Catalonia has mountains and mountains that are very pictorial from afar – the highway or the Tibidabo funicular, for example – but its citizens have taken to traveling, ascending or even climbing them. And what can one expect from mixing with orographic features?
Although they don't say this out loud, I already assume that the Generalitat Bombers are overwhelmed with so many mountain rescues, which do not lend themselves to show off, unlike the more Eurovision-like beach rescues. From 696 rescues in 2013 to 1,443 last year...
It doesn't surprise me, really. Going up the mountain on unpaved roads is free, stretching your legs is healthy and you can always give it your all to conquer a peak and take a photo with or without a flag.
The problem is that people like me go up the mountain and one wonders who put the idea in their heads that ascending the mountain so that goats are better than contemplating them from one of those chalets with a fireplace, a double parking space and Movistar in case Barça perpetrates it.
Rescuing people who get lost, are scared at nightfall – where the Goiat bear carouses in the Pyrenees – or trip over a rock costs the treasury money, but it is not a question of making them pay the bill either because it starts like that and then The friends of the barnacle would charge us double for hospital procedures. The poor have enough punishment! Who knows if they climbed on their own initiative or encouraged by a divorced mountaineer! Or because of the native media pressure, which suggests that ascending the snow-capped mountains of Catalonia is a way of touching independence, even if it is a sentimental touch, which is what it is about for the rest of the decade.
The mountain means getting up early, a paradoxical attraction if we think that many hikers get up early to get to their workplace, either rheumy or driven by the obligation to feed their children steaks. Spending your holiday getting cold, eating energy bars and putting cream on your face has its mystery. With how beautiful the Tibidabo amusement park is!
