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Showing posts from July, 2018

Picnic Bermejales 29 July 2018

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This week some of us decided to take things easy and go on a picnic. Others in the group, who wanted a bit of exercise,  went for a swim.  Dave and Julie had entered into an open water swimming competition on the pantano at Bermejales. It looked an easy level course and at only 1.5 km, I feel sure we could all have done it, if it had been spread out, over a few days. We were there as support and cheerleaders for team GB.    All our hard work paid off with Julie romping home to gold and Dave coming first in the old gits class.  Not only did Julie win a superb gold cup, which I feel sure will have pride of place in her display cabinet, she won a selection box of fruit and wine.  After all the excitement we nearly forgot what we had gone for, so, finding a nice shady spot under the trees we held our annual picnic.  Well done to Julie and Dave,  you made a great picnic into a brilliant day out.   We walked 0.2 km and climbed 10 metres

Walk Sunday 22 July 2018 Veleta

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This week, in an effort to cool down, we went for a walk to pico de Veleta, at 3394 metres it is the second highest peak in the Sierra Nevada. After taking a detour through Pradollano, because the road was closed due to a road race, we arrived at Hoya de la Mora and a reserved car parking space, thank you Fernando.  There are a number of options available for tackling the summit.  The easiest way is to catch the bus or the telecabina, both of which are far too easy.  A track up the San Juan valley, discounted due to excess snow.  Following the road, the easiest way but it can get a bit monotonous.  A direct path which intersects with the road a number of times, preferred option, but I     was planning on coming back this way anyway.  In the end we took a mixture of the last 2, On the easier cross country bits we took to the footpath, the rest we did on the road until we got over 3000 metres, where, due to a lack of oxygen, we stuck to the road and we were

Walk Sunday 15 July 2018 Murchas- Nigúelas

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Some of our group were very excited about a major sporting event due to take place on Sunday. So, following advice from my friends who know about these things, I planned a short local walk from Murchas.To try and avoid the worst of  the summer heat we had an early 08.30 start. The walk started from the bridge in Murchas and followed the rio Torrent up to Nigúelas, normally at this time of the year the river is dry, but this year it is still flowing.  Things started to go wrong just before we arrived in Nigúelas, we had made good time and it was still cool so we decided to extend the walk a little bit. I know, I can hear you all groaning,  “There he goes again, advertising a short walk and we end up doing 20 km”. But this was just an extra 1km and brought us into the village along the upper sendero. Ellen and John decided not to go on the extension and we arranged to meet them in a bar up by the church. When we arrived in Nigúelas we looked everywhere for the pair, w

Walk Sunday 8 July 2018 Caballo

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The destination for this week's walk was Caballo, the little hill behind Nigúelas. At 3015 metres it is the lowest of the 3000 metre peaks in the Sierra Nevada but for those of us living in the valley it is our hill and must be climbed. Access is not easy as it entails a 15 km drive on a rough 4X4 track. This year we only had available 2 vehicles capable of making the journey so our numbers were limited to 10 people. In the end, only 8 people wanted to go which made the drive a lot pleasanter for those sitting in the back. They were shaken not stirred. It’s a great way up as from the start the summit is in view, and it remains so for most of the climb. There was surprisingly little snow on the way up, after last weeks lower altitude walk in the snow I had been looking forward to sledging all the way back. The views from the top were superb in all directions, most of the remaining snow was down in the valley of the Rio Lanjaron, obviously, this was our intend

Walk Sunday 1 July 2018 Laguna Yeguas

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We had a cooling experience on our walk this week. Our destination was the Laguna Yeguas on the side of Veleta. We had arranged to meet at the Hoya de la Mora which, fortunately this time,  was clear of snow. The last time we were there the carpark was under 4 metres of snow and just the cabin roofs were poking through it.  The temperature, at 12 degrees wasn’t bad but it was windy which brought it down into the chilly range and I was glad I had some warm clothing with me, unlike Brenda who looked liked she was heading for the beach. The higher we climbed the cooler and windier it became, fortunately we managed to find a bit of shelter out of the wind up by the observatory. After a short break we headed off across the snowfields towards the Laguna. I was starting to get excited, the last time we had seen so much snow was a number of years ago and there were icebergs floating on the Laguna, would we be fortunate enough to see them again? Yippee, there they were, I cou