27 April 2014 La Maroma

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We had two walks organised this weekend. The the big walk was to Maroma, where most of the group returned totally knackered, but with that inner satisfaction that comes from achieving something big.
The second walk was led by Hilary from Restabal.
The big walk.
Our walk this Sunday was a spectacular one. It was a walk the “Old gits” had discovered last year. Please note a change of name from the A team to the Old gits, this is because of the very poor performance by three unnamed members of the previously named A team. I don’t know how to explain in Spanish what an Old git is but you know the old men who sit in shade all day discussing the weather, well these are old gits.
La Maroma is the very large hill that sits between Alhama de Granada and the sea. It is only just over 2000 metres in altitude but it is an enormous and spectacular mountain.
We had a early 8.30 start because it was going to be a long day. The drive takes 1 hour 20 minutes.
There  are a number of routes up the hill, the tourist route that most people use, whilst interesting, does not give you the spectacular views that our more circular route affords. There must of been nearly 100 people heading off up the tourist route, thank goodness they did not know of our secret path.
The track starts by heading away from the mountain and going down hill. The amazing thing is no one stopped to question the leader, what faith they have. After a few minutes it turns in a southerly direction and starts the ascent. The path is not marked apart from a few cairns. After a couple of hours of climbing in a valley the path comes out on a ridge. The views were magnificent, all along the coast and over to Morocco, The African coastline has never looked so close, with a good pair of binoculars we could have seen the Elephants.
We stopped for a little lunch before beginning the serious climbing up La Maroma. This is a great way up, a bit of scrambling, open views, beautiful scenery. The final part is on the tourist track and there were hundreds of walkers making their way down, thank goodness we went on our route, we hadn’t seen anyone for hours.
At the top we stopped for the big lunch and a rest. It was a shame we could not stay longer but we still had a good few kms to do before we got back to the cars. We returned via the tourist route and, with all day trippers long gone, it was a delight to make our way down the steep track.
We got back to the cars around 7.30, we stopped for a well deserved beer on the way home arriving back to the valley around 9.30. after our incredible day out on what was our hardest, Sunday, hard walk, to date. Once all the aches and pains have receded, I think everyone will agree it was a very enjoyable day out.       
We walked 21.6 km and climbed 1303 metres, the way back was 7.9 km and we were out on the hills for 9 hours 25 minutes. I know the figures do not look outstanding, but I think everyone will agree that the walk lived up to expectation.
Stuart
Hilary’s little big walk.
A small, spritely group of us made such rapid progress to Pinos del Valle that we decided to make it a circular route and walk back to Restabal.  We walked 11 km, gained 300m in altitude mainly up a steep but very pleasant new path at the beginning and would have taken 3.5 hours if we hadn't stopped to watch a cycle race, bee-eaters and various other things on the way back. Tapas at Bar Jovi [La Despensa] was really good.
This is the last short end of the month walk until September

Hilary

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