17 February 2013 Sierra Manar

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Lunch on a foggy hillside
Dear All.
I have received a few comments about some inaccuracies that may have occurred in last week's email. To address these issues I have rewritten the email, so please disregard anything you read last week.

Dear all
We went for a walk and then went home.

Stuart


This weekend, the 17 February, we went to the Sierra Manar, the hill behind Dilar for our walk. I had advertised this as a superb walk with great views over the Sierra Nevada. A Dutch lady in the group wants her money back because the walk contravened the trade descriptions act.
I left Chite in early morning sunshine, by the time I got to Durcal fog had reduced the visibility down to 50 metres, it was slightly better at our meeting point in Cozvijar. We decided to continue with the walk with the expectation that the sun would soon burn it off.
Setting off from above Dilar, well they had to take my word for it, you could not see the Pueblo because of the fog, we headed up a track towards the Sierra Manar. The path then follows an undulating route alongside the edge of a forest. We had christened this the big dipper path when we discovered it a few years ago. The path falls into, and then climbs out of, a series of steep sided gullies. Because we could not see where we were going, and the fact that they are all looked very similar, some wags in the group suggested we were lost and that I was leading them around in circles. It was a bit surreal, there were a lot of people out walking, probably lost and going around in circles, you could hear them but you could not see them.
After a couple of hours the path joins a forest road and you start the climb up Sierra Manar. I was hoping we would climb above the fog as we made our way up, but it was not to be. At the summit of our walk we stopped for lunch and I tried to describe the wonderful mountains surrounding us, but they had to take my word for it, you could not see them because of the fog.
The way back is very quick, it is virtually a straight line back to the car, no twisting or turning, no ups and downs, just straight downhill all the way. This was the only time the fog lifted a bit and whilst the views were not spectacular, at least you could see where we had been.   
The walk was slightly longer and higher than advertised, I had intended to do this one but I had advertised the details for another one starting from the same point.
A shame about the weather but they were interesting tracks to walk on anyway.
We walked 12.9 km and climbed 670 metres.  
This weeks photo was taken at our lunch stop.
In the afternoon we went round to John and Carol’s for tapas.

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