Matagalls, Mountain summit in Montseny Natural Park, Spain
Matagalls is a mountain summit in the Montseny Massif, sitting on the boundary of the municipalities of Viladrau, El Brull, and Montseny. The peak is made of phyllite and hornfels, two types of rock that give it a rough, dark surface that stands out from the forested slopes below.
The peak was known as Autora until around 1500, when it took on the name Matagalls that it carries today. Little is recorded about why the name changed, but the new name stuck firmly across the region.
At the summit stands a large cross dedicated to the Catalan poet Jacint Verdaguer, known as Mossèn Cinto. Among its plaques is one honouring the priest and hiker Jaume Oliveras i Brossa, in whose memory the Matagalls-Montserrat endurance race was created; it once started from this peak. A popular gathering, the Aplec de Matagalls, is held here on the second Sunday of July.
The shortest and most popular route starts at Coll Formic (1,145 m), where a signposted path climbs 553 m to the cross in about 1 hour 15 minutes. From Sant Segimon (1,230 m) a quieter path marked PR C-205 passes the Font de Matagalls. The summit holds a geodetic vertex and a large cross.
At the end of the 18th century, surveyors used this summit as one of the triangulation points to measure the meridian running through Dunkerque, Paris and Barcelona, work that helped establish the length of the metre. A geodesic vertex (reference 294106001) now stands beside the large cross dedicated to Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer.
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