15 September 2013 Trevenque

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Hi.
This week we had planned to go for a big walk to the refugio Elorrirta but the weather forecast was for low cloud, I did not fancy climbing up to 3000 metres only to be covered in cloud. A lower walk was required, one out of the cloud. Trevenque fitted the bill, at just over 2000 metres it should be low enough and, if not, there were other walks we could do from the carpark.
Over the week the weather forecast slowly improved and by Sunday we had clear skies. So Trevenque was our destination, This is the triangular, evil looking mountain above Cumbres Verde, the one that looks like it should have black smoke coming from the summit and the Devil himself sat there hurling rocks down the sheer rock faces. I have not been up it for about 7 years, it is not the easiest hill to climb, in actual fact you don’t climb it, you scramble up it.
For the first 5 km you follow an easy track as it slowly climbs from the Sevilla carpark. Then comes the scramble, this is where we sorted the men from the boys. We had three refusals and they went off to await our return. This left us with nine willing walkers, determined to get to the top, well, not so much willing, more like coerced. The slope is 32.5% and,whilst this is steep it would not be problem if the path was good but it is suffering from erosion and is very loose under foot. Add in some steep drops and rocks that you have to climb over, you can imagine the looks I kept getting. Five times Kees said he was going to turn around and go back, but a minute later he was climbing again.
What surprised me was the number of people going up, this must be one of the hardest climbs without ropes in the Sierra Nevada range and there were more people on the top  than at a Barack Obama appreciation society meeting. After a short break, and with no sign of a helicopter rescue, we decided to make our way down and regroup with the others.
There are two ways down from the top, on one you risk certain death, the other is to return on the path we came up on and is marginally safer. Surprisingly the way down was easier than going up and, as Dave says, it was a “walk in the park” for our experienced group of walkers. Safely down we went to join up with Mike’s group, only to find he had lost 2 and he had only gone 200 metres. Apparently convinced they would never see us again they had buggered off to the bar to hold a wake to long lost friends.
After a quick lunch and with the prospect of our own trip to the bar in mind we made our way back to the cars and onto the Fuente del Hervidero bar just down the road from the carpark.   
Well done to everyone, a magnificent effort on a very difficult walk.
We walked 11.2 km and climbed 739 metres, the maximum altitude was 2083 metres.

The photo was taken back at the Sevilla car park.

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