Lecrin Valley Limpers

This week it was our big end of the month walk, and we went to Pico Lucero, my favorite walk of all time. Pico Lucero is in the Sierras Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama Natural park and, whilst the mountains are not as big as the Sierra Nevada, the views are just as spectacular and the mountains themselves are far more rugged. We had our usual 9am start, as it was the weekend of moving the clocks forward we lost an hour in bed. We had a long day ahead of us so we could not waste time under the covers. It is an hours drive to the start of the walk and you end up with a 5km drive along a forest track which takes you deep into the interior of the Natural park.  The walk starts by continuing along the forest road for about 10 minutes, which is just perfect to warm the muscles up before the climbing starts. First though there is a river to cross. It is a bit of a contentious issue within the group that some of the walks I choose involve crossing rivers that don’t have bridges. It...

The weather forecast had predicted clouds, low temperatures and a strong northerly wind for our Sunday walk this week so we chose a walk setting off from Lanjaron which would keep us out of the wind. We have never done this walk before on a Sunday because time wise it is on the limit of what we can do and still get back in time for a 3.30 tapas. I thought that, with the increasingly youthfulness of the group, (Rene has suggested that the rest of us will have to grow younger in order to keep up), and with some careful time management we would just have enough time to get to Tello and back in the allotted time frame. Not that the Tello refugio is a particularly important place, it is just somewhere to shelter if the weather is bad.   The walk starts at the far end of Lanjaron and follows a steep path as it ascends the Lanjaron valley. For the next two hours the path is up, I know I have a reputation for choosing walks that involve a bit of climbing, but this one is serious ...

Last Sunday, the 16th of March, was my birthday and to help me celebrate I invited all my friends to join me on a circular walk from Conchar. The walk started by going into the village where we took a short diversion to look at a particularly fine example of a lemon tree, well, to be honest we took a wrong turning and I had to think up a quick excuse for trailing everyone up a hill and then down again. After the detour we resumed our intended route which followed the track out of the village towards Albunúelas, after a km we branched off and headed towards Restabal. This is a well graded path and we made rapid progress up to the highest point of the day at 891 metres. after this there is a long downhill section down to the Rio Santo. We followed the Santo for a few metres then turned, and followed the Rio Durcal back towards Conchar, stopping along the way for lunch. In the old days this would have been an easy stroll following the river all the way back to the village,...

On Sunday we did a local walk starting in Talara. We had arranged to meet at the crossroads and when I arrived there were a lot of people milling around in full walking gear, people who I did not recognise. I know my memory is failing with each passing year, but with this many  unknowns I starting to wonder if I'd had a case of sudden onset Alzheimer's. Just then a bus appeared and whisked them all off, leaving me with some friends I did recognise. The walk started nice and gently by following the road out towards Talara cemetery. It then starts to climb and for the next 5 km the track heads uphill, I had estimated around a couple of hours to get us to the top. But Plym and Martine had other ideas, they set off at a cracking pace, leaving the rest of us puffing and panting in their slipstream. I initially blamed Plym, who appears to back on form after her recent loss of fitness, for knocking 30 minutes off the ascent but, in a true sign of sisterhood, Martine said she...

Plan A this week, was a circular walk from Talara. By Friday it was becoming obvious it was going to be a pretty miserable walk. The forecast was predicting cool temperatures,  a strong northerly wind and some rain. Not something to eagerly get out of bed for at 7am. I had to come up with something to entice the group to turn out and not turn over and go back to sleep. Fortunately, only 10 minutes away from our valley, sits Lanajaon. Nestling in the lee of the Sierra Nevada’s it is protected from the bitter northerly winds that have become a feature of our valley recently. An extensive search of the Limper walks repository came up with a circular walk around the Rio Lanjaron. So I sent an email changing our destination and extolling the virtues of Lanjaron. I thought I may have over egged the pudding (tried to make it too good) a bit by describing it as a different world, but hey,I didn’t want the walk to consist of just Mike and myself. Sunday morning dawned as predicted...