The Forat Micó in Calders -do not mistake it with the Forat Micó in the Mountain of Salt of Cardona!- is a natural tunnel about 10 meters long and high enough to walk it without having to bend down, and that continues as a natural shelter on both sides. The water from the Fondo de Vilaclara stream jumps over it to fall into the river Calders, and the water channel of Colònia Jorba or Viladecavalls crosses through it.
The Forat Micó is on the right slope of Calders river between Bellveí and Rubió farmhouses, about 10 meters higher and parallel to the river. The PR-C 197 Calders trail passes close by, but you have to deviate from it, go down to find the channel of Colònia Jorba and follow it until finding the surprise of Forat Micó.
Forat Micó in Calders is a noticeable geological site. Its origin is very recent. At the beginning, Forat Micó was a long natural shelter that protruded from the slope, with the waterfall of Fondo de Vilaclara stream in the middle. The water that is loaded with calcium bicarbonate because it has circulated through limestone rock lays down travertine. This travertine grows in a curtain that displaces the waterfall outwards and ends up leaving behind an empty space, one tunnel that is limited between the new travertine wall and the original Eocene rock wall. However, the water jumps one year in one point and the next year a few metres further, it filters and drips here and there; the generation of travertine is actually more random than the basic explanation and the geomorphology ends in the capricious, voluptuous shapes of the caves.
The channel of Colònia Jorba or Viladecavalls was built between 1903 and 1913. It takes water from Calders river at the Bellveí dam, it transports this water almost without losing height along 5 km through the rocky and curled relief of the right-hand side of the Calders river and discharges it into the pressure pipe of the Colònia Jorba hydroelectric power station. The channel of Colònia Jorba is mostly made of stone, narrow and deep. The channel goes into Forat Micó. Although as soon as the channel enters Forat Micó, the old stone wall of the channel disappears and reappears on the other side of Forat Micó; the channel is a narrow and inaccessible second parallel tunnel further into the mountain. It is not obvious whether just the new, laid in more than 100 years travertine has encompassed the old wall of the channel, or whether also one stretch of the channel was originally built as a tunnel here.
The limestone rock, the stream, the heroic channel of Colònia Jorba and the time have sculpted the surprising and beautiful geomorphology of Forat Micó.
The 1st image shows the complete Forat Micó and the 2nd the detail of its travertine deposit shapes. The 3rd image shows the waterfall of Fondo de Vilaclara stream above Forat Micó as seen from the river Calders. The 4th image shows the entrance of the channel of Colònia Jorba into Forat Micó.
[photos Florenci Vallès and Jordi Badia]
- See other places with travertine curtain generation in the stream of La Masica (Ripollès) and in Salt del Mir (Osona).