The Siurana Traverse
After five days on foot and a little over 90 km, on 31 March we reached the confluence of the Siurana river with the Ebro. It was the end of the walk that marked the beginning of The Open Shore, a project that addresses the diversion of the river’s water to Riudecanyes as a territorial and symbolic wound.
The Siurana is a short river, but with a very distinct character: from the canyon and escarpments of the Prades Mountains (Priorat, Catalonia, Spain) to the Ebro valley (Ribera d’Ebre), the territory it crosses is highly varied in both geology and landscape.
Celeste and I were never alone on the walk, enjoying quiet spring days (no rain, no heat, an exception in recent years) and a river carrying unusually high water. It was an exceptional abundance, due to the months of rain this past winter: the Siurana usually carries little water, with its flow permanently diverted to another basin.
Walkers: Marco, Celeste, William, Eliseu, Mònica, Roser, Joan. Accomplices: Montserrat (Terra d’Art); Joana, Rubio; Priorat Dibuixa; Mas de Sant Marcell winery; Anaïs, Lluís, Anna (Plataforma pel Riu Siurana); Arnau, Isabel and Auró (El Petit Llop); Pilar and Josep (Ca La Pubilla), Fundació Quim Soler.
- Project and credits: The Open Shore
- The Siurana: Anatomy of an Extraction
- Photographic record (under construction)
27.03.2026 · Day 1: La Febró > Siurana
The route begins at the headwaters of the Siurana, in a mountain landscape where the river is still young, narrow, and boxed in between rock walls. The Siurana has no single spring; it is born as the confluence of several ravines (among them the Foradada ravine, the Cova del Corral ravine, and the Avellanar ravine) on the outskirts of La Febró. In this stretch, over geological time, water has worked through the limestones1 and dolomites2, opening caves, pools, and a karst canyon3. Here the Siurana flows through the cracks of time, separating the rocks of the Paleozoic basement to the north from the Mesozoic cover to the south. It is the most abrupt and foundational stretch of the journey: rocks, enclosed walls, and the sense that the river is still carving out its own body.
The day ends with the climb to the Balcó de Siurana, overlooking the reservoir of the same name. The ascent reveals itself slowly between two rock walls, so vertical that it is impossible to guess where the path goes. You have to trust the way, step by step.
The Siurana reservoir. Photo: Celeste Reyna.
28.03.2026 · Day 2: Siurana > Poboleda
From Siurana to Poboleda, the landscape begins to change: we enter the Priorat of llicorella4, the dark, laminated rock that marks much of the comarca’s physical character. It is a very clear day of transition: from the more spectacular relief of the rock walls to a territory where the river also begins to be read as a regulated, intervened, and disputed space.
Leaving behind the enclosed walls of the previous day, we move through more open spaces, climbing gentle hills and crossing riparian woodland. We reach the open shore about ten kilometres southwest of Siurana, where the assut of the Venta del Pubill is located. At this point, the Riudecanyes tunnel opens, diverting four fifths of the Siurana towards Reus. There we met with the Priorat Dibuixa community to collectively portray the river’s wound. Anaïs Estrems, from the Plataforma pel Riu Siurana, also joined us to speak about the platform’s struggle against the plunder of the river.
29.03.2026 · Day 3: Poboleda > Torroja > Gratallops
From Poboleda to Gratallops, the Siurana enters fully into the heart of the Priorat. Cultivated plots multiply and fluvial terraces5 appear. The valley remains narrow, and with the river so swollen, the stretch between Poboleda and Torroja is completely flooded. It takes us more than five hours to cover 5 km, almost all of them in the water, looking for traces of the original paths. There is no trace of human passage; the paths are overrun by undergrowth. Feet reddened by the cold water, ankles and calves scratched by the invisible grazing of Clematis flammula (vidiella). Within this abundance, the systemic lack of water becomes more evident: the tracks and paths are flooded because they were created around a river that usually suffers long periods of low water6. Here, water is the exception.
30.03.2026 · Day 4: Gratallops > Bellmunt > El Masroig
From Gratallops towards Bellmunt and then El Masroig, the route enters the old mining basin of the Priorat, where the landscape no longer speaks only of vineyards and river valleys, but also of underground extraction. In Bellmunt and its surroundings, the most visible trace is lead mining, extracted from galena7, with spoil heaps, facilities, and galleries that still make the industrial dimension of the subsoil visible. The Priorat has a long mining tradition: there is evidence of metal trade in the Molar-Bellmunt-Falset area during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, in exchanges with the Phoenicians, who brought wine and took away lead and silver.
Past the mines, from Bellmunt to El Masroig, the red-earth track rises gently through the Mediterranean woodland. El Masroig, the mas roig. The day is warm and the clayey path shines a vivid red.
31.03.2026 · Day 5: El Masroig > Aiguabarreig > Garcia > El Molar
From El Masroig to Garcia, the river enters its final stretch and the landscape opens towards the Ebro valley. The Paleozoic8 and Mesozoic9 mountains of Prades are distant by several tens of millions of years10. Here the landscape widens, generously, and the river spreads over a gravel bed. Accompanied by Joan and Roser, we walk through the valley looking at the old dry-stone walls raised on the heights, sheltered from floods. Joan knows the Priorat as his home; he is one of those human intelligences made of experience, curiosity, and love for his land.
The Siurana reaches the Ebro carrying rock, erosion, memory, and conflict with it. Downstream from the Mequinensa, Riba-roja, and Flix reservoirs, it could be the only river contributing sediment to the delta11 — and this spring, it is. But plundered and diverted out of its basin, it usually arrives emptied of matter and memory, extending its wound all the way to the sea.
The aiguabarreig is stirred by the wind. The blue-green waters of the Siurana mix with the ochre-tinted waters of the Ebro. “The cleanest water is the Siurana’s,” Roser says, smiling.
The Ebro-Siurana aiguabarreig.
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Limestone: sedimentary rock composed mainly of calcium carbonate. ⤶
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Dolomite: carbonate rock composed mainly of dolomite, a calcium magnesium carbonate mineral. ⤶
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Karst canyon: a narrow, deep valley carved by water into soluble rocks, especially limestones and dolomites, within a karst system. See El canó càrstic del cingle de la cova Serena. ⤶
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Llicorella: the local Priorat name for Paleozoic slates and phyllites, dark, laminated, fissile rocks that are highly characteristic of the Priorat. See Parc Natural de la Serra de Montsant, geology section: Geologia. ⤶
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Fluvial terrace: a flat, bench-like structure that marks a former position of the river, abandoned when the channel cut down to a lower level. ⤶
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Low-water period: the lowest level or minimum flow a river reaches in the dry season; the term also refers to the period when this occurs. See Real Academia Española, Diccionario de la lengua española: estiaje. ⤶
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Galena: lead ore that was the main object of exploitation in the Bellmunt del Priorat mines. In the context of the Priorat mining basin, galena is the mineral from which lead was obtained and is one of the keys to understanding the area’s extractive history. See Museu de les mines de Bellmunt del Priorat and Primeros datos arqueométricos sobre la metalurgia del poblado y necrópolis de Calvari del Molar. ⤶
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The Paleozoic rocks of Prades formed between 541 and 252 million years ago, before the appearance of dinosaurs. ⤶
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The Mesozoic rocks, between 252 and 66 million years ago, belong to the time of the great inland seas that left the limestones of the south. ⤶
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The final stretch of the Siurana runs through the Móra basin, a depression filled during the Cenozoic (between 66 and 23 million years ago) and more recently covered by Quaternary deposits — fluvial terraces and alluvium from the last 2.5 million years — that shape the valley’s current landscape. ⤶
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The Canaletes, the other tributary downstream from the large reservoirs, is a river with marginal flow whose sediment contribution to the delta is negligible. The Siurana would be the only one with real capacity to contribute sediment. ⤶