Lecrin Valley Limpers

This week for our big end of the month walk we went to the Sierra Huétor,  you always have a good walk in this park, and this week was no exception. We had moved on to our early summer start time of 8.30, and we were in Huétor and ready for the off by 9.15. There was only a small number of us this week, the migratory Brits having already started their move back to cooler climates, and everyone else is taking time out for the European elections, workshops, family and friends. It was a little cool first off and I did question the wisdom of wearing shorts, but it made us walk a little faster in an effort to get warm. To start with the path was in the forest then, after 4 kms, it started  an easy climb up to a look out tower. There was no one else around, we had the place to ourselves. Normally on a Sunday this park is quite busy, but today it was like a midweek walk when you see nobody. We discovered these paths last year, whilst on a midweek walk, but we only cloc...

This week we went to Monachil, but we did things a little differently, we didn’t do the usual swing bridge walk. We had arranged to meet everyone by the river in the village, I was a bit shocked to see that it was in flood as we had to cross it higher up. I have experience of involuntary swimming in this river, and the thought of all 21 of us floating down through Monachil, all waving away, was quite amusing. Instead of heading for the gorge we went uphill on a country road that soon headed into the campo. We were surprised to see that they were picking cherries, it only seems a few weeks since we were looking at the cherry blossom. José had a good idea and went off to buy some cherries, coming back with 5 kilos of them, much to the delight of the rest of us, who promptly set about helping her eat them. The path continued up, until eventually it started to drop down into the gorge. There was a short sticky section where the path had dropped away, the last time we came up ...

This week was our fun weekend to Antequera. We had arranged two walks, an easy one for the Saturday, and a long one for the Sunday. We had an early 8 am start from Cozvijar, stopping off in Granada to meet up with the rest of the group who live nearer to Granada. We had arranged to meet Hans, a guide who works for the National park, he was going to spend the day with us, showing us parts of the park not normally open to visitors. We started off in the restaurant with breakfast, this was going to be an exhausting day, we had 10 km to cover in around 8 hours, so we needed our strength building up. Setting off on the walk Hans told us some of the history of the park, and how it was formed, he was also able to show us things we would have walked past if we had been exploring by ourselves. In the parts of the park where the rif raf weren’t allowed we discovered fantastic rock formations, balancing on a knife edge, Ammonites, unusual trees, and caves. We returned to ...

This week we had a very easy walk planned to Boca de la Pesca. It was Mike’s 70th birthday and he wanted something befitting an old git, we also needed something with wheelchair access, well you never know, he is 70 now. This must be one of the most stunning short walks ever. From the moment you step out of your car, you are enveloped in beautiful countryside. To the East you have the snow covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada, South Picacho Alto and Puntales del Tigre, to the West there is  Pico Lucero and to the North, Granada and the Sierra Arrana. All our favorite spots on view, it’s enough to make an old man weep. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, warm enough for T-shirts and shorts, but not too hot to cause any problems. It was only a short walk so we took our time as we climbed up to the peak and look out tower on Boca de la Pesca.  It was too early to stop for something to eat so we made our way back down the hill and headed off  on a l...