28 September 2014 Mulhacen

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This week it was our big end of the month walk and we went to Mulhacen. It was a walk for the tough and the brave, a walk to remember, a walk with no views.
We have had a pretty mixed bag of weather this week. The promised rain finally appeared along with some heavy thunderstorms. The forecast for Sunday, whilst not good,  did look like we stood a reasonable chance of remaining dry.
As usual for the Mulhacen trip we had an early, 7 am start from Beznar, this gives us enough time for the drive to Capiliera, a quick coffee and sufficient time to get the tickets for the bus. There was 15 of us and I counted up how many actions the ticket issuer had to go through, each ticket needed 11 ticks, stamps, or something written on it. 165 actions to issue 15 tickets. We could have had an extra 30 minutes in bed.
The cloud was hanging about at around 2500 metres, somewhat short of the predicted 3800 metres in the forecast, and considerably lower than the 3482 meter summit of Mulhacen. There were a number of backup plans including joining Hilary, Anne and Conchi for a walk to the Caldera, walking back to Capileira or finding a bar somewhere, difficult but not impossible.
In spite of the not too encouraging weather everyone was keen to walk, we set off in good spirits heading for our destinations. The higher we climbed the thicker the cloud became and we ended up with visibility of around  20 metres. We arrived at the top with the temperature hovering around 2 degrees and  to sleet, snow and wind. We stayed long enough for a quick snack and a photo and then set off back looking for some shelter so we could stop for our lunch.
Finding nowhere suitable we headed for a underground refugio. This was sheer luxury, it was dry, out of the wind and there were even 3 candles for us to huddle around and get warm. I had not realised  but a couple had been following us, at a distance, just far enough back so they could see us in the mist. They did not know the way down but they knew we were heading for the bus. When we went into the refugio we just disappeared like Rabbits down a rabbithole. Being underground the refugio is not visible from the path. When we emerged, half  an hour later, we found them wandering around on the hillside trying to find us, convinced that we had been consumed by the Mulhacen Mountain Monster, or EL 3m as it is known by the locals.
We arrived back at the bus stop to find Hillary, Anne and Conchi waiting for us. We had nearly 1 hour to wait for the bus so, to keep warm, we performed a series of physical exercises much to the amusement of the fellow passengers.   
Well done to everyone, even though the conditions were appalling we kept our spirits high, we reached our goals, even if you couldn’t see them, and everybody looked to have enjoyed themselves. Hilary has already signed up for next year.   
This week we had 15 in the group

We walked 15.8 km and climbed 801 metres.

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