Lecrin Valley Limpers

We had 2 walks planned on Sunday, our hard end of the month walk following the route of the Neveros and an easier walk with Hilary from Melegis. The hard walk. We had a small, select group of walkers this week, in fact there was only John and myself in Cozvijar for our late 9 am start. Fortunately  Rafa, Antonia, Fernando and Mark were waiting for us at the alternative meeting point near the Dornajo visitor centre on Veleta. The weather was perfect and the temperature was just right for exploring this new area. In the past I have walked on all the paths but this week was the first time we have put it all together into a circular walk. The walk starts by following the first section of the Sulayr long distance path but, after a couple of kilometres, it crosses the los Neveros path coming up from Granada, this was used until the advent of refrigerators to bring ice down from Veleta for use by the Granadinos during the summer.    This is an excellent, well graded trail t

Our walk on Sunday was the big one, yes, it was Mulhacen and they just don’t come any bigger in mainland Spain. We are so lucky to have this enormous lump of rock on our doorstep.  Every year I think no one will want to go up it again but every year, in spring, someone will say “when are we doing Mulhacen this year” and the numbers just keep growing. Poor Paco at the information centre keeps having to find bigger and bigger buses for us.  There were 26 people originally booked to go but, at the last moment we had 3 who were not feeling too good and this is the last place to be if you are not 100%.   We had a very early, 7 am, start from Beznar, and then drove to Capileira and met up with the sensible ones who had spent the night up there in hotels. After a quick cup of coffee we were off in the Medio Ambiente bus that would takes us to the start of the walk at 2500 metres. The conditions were superb, clear skies and the temperature perfect for a day out in the hills.

Phew! It’s hot, my newly cleaned and polished crystal balls were right in predicting dry sunny weather. I am sorry for the misunderstanding in last weeks email, it should have read “Olwyn has spent the last few days cleaning and polishing my crystal balls”. Some folks thought I had had a very good week, and that I had also found a new way to forecast the weather, neither of them were correct.  Anyway we are having a heatwave, not an English heatwave of 22 degrees, this is a full on 44 degree Spanish heatwave.  Because of the heat we had a short walk planned to Pico Lopera. We had an early 8.30 start from Cozvijar and stopped off in Padul to pick the Granada contingent up.  There were 21 of us and a puppy for what is an easy walk in spectacular countryside.  The walk starts from the Mesón de los Prados, the little bar on the carretera de Cabra, and it follows a farm track through rolling countryside. We were lucky to see a family of Jabali out for their morning stro