Lecrin Valley Limpers

A happy New Year to everyone Our walk this week was our annual beer and tapas walk around Granada. Once again our guide was Mike who lead us around the city for what was a very enjoyable day out.    Granada, the jewel of Spain, played host once again to our annual "Old Years" pilgrimage through this wonderful city. The day started at 10 o'clock at the Cozvijar roundabout. It was freezing, the wind was howling, it felt more like we were embarking on an expedition to the North Pole. Undeterred we stiffened the sinews and summoned up the blood and set out on our adventure. The gods smiled on us; the City was bathed in sunshine and the wind had gone to play its mischief high up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We parked our cars in the outskirts of Granada and that's when we encountered our first problem. Some in the group, namely Arthur and Caroline, decided that seeing as we were parked outside Lidl it would be a good idea to go and do a little ...

Peña Partida This week we had two walks organised, the first our big end of the month walk, and second an easy walk around Talara. We have had some very good weather this week, with temperatures around 20 degrees and a lot of the snow on the lower slopes of the Sierras has melted. Whilst this may not be good news for the sky resort for us it was excellent news, and, with the weather forecast predicting 21 degrees in Granada, it looked like our first choice option to Peña Partida could go ahead. We have not done this walk on a Sunday before because of the need for either 4X4 or cars with high ground clearance. There are now a number of suitable cars in the group so we could consider putting this walk on our itinerary. It is a spectacular walk, amongst the giants of the Sierra Nevadas. We drove to Guejar Sierra where we met up with Mark and Ursula and consolidated our transport, setting off again in 3 vehicles suitable for driving the 10 km rough road up the Loma de Papeles. The...

Cuerva Marmoles I had had high hopes all week that the weather on Sunday would be good, but Sunday dawned with low cloud hanging over the Sierras. Driving past Padul on our way to Húetor it started to rain, this was definitely not on the radar. Hoping that it would be only a quick shower we pressed on to our destination, driving through more heavy rain on the way. By the time we arrived at the start of the walk it had stopped raining but we were in the clouds. Surprisingly everyone was in high spirits and eagerly doned their waterproofs. Setting off we followed a level path for a couple of kms before taking a superb little path that winds its way down in the valley floor. Mike was on point duty and had been given the task of finding the path, he walked straight past it, so he was re-assigned to the rear of the group, in charge of the stragglers. The last time we were on this path it was before the start of the rainy season and I was beside myself with worry that we would get ...

At the Quarry with Sierra Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama in the background We had another new walk for the group this week, it is one the A team discovered a few months ago. The walk starts from Venta del Fraile, the bar on the Carretera de Cabra road, and follows a dry river bed as it heads down to the abandoned military camp. This was always going to be a potential problem, the camp is used by hunters and I did not fancy being used for target practice. As we approached the limits of the camp gunfire could be heard, this was all that was required to break out the white flag and do a 90 degree change of direction, taking us back into the forest and away from the hunters. We ended up back on the road a couple of hundred metres from where we had started. I don’t think anyone noticed the deviation. They were all too pleased not to be the menu of the day. We continued along the road before heading back into the forest, and to a surprise viewpoint of the Sierra Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama, ...