Lecrin Valley Limpers

Hi The weather in the valley this week has been mixed, warm and sunny one day, and the next wet, cloudy and cool. trying to get an accurate weather forecast is impossible, you get a different forecast every couple of hours, My crystal ball works better than the latest meteorological computers. The forecast for Sunday was not promising, with rain and low cloud on offer. Sunday morning dawned dull but dry, and it looked like our walk from Cumbres Verde would be OK. By the time we arrived for the start of the walk the low cloud had lifted sufficiently for our path to be in the clear. We were only going up to 1,400 metres and there was a lower level alternative route as a backup plan For the first ½ km we followed the forest road before heading off down into the barranco. This was a new path we had discovered last year, and it makes an interesting alternative route for climbing Cerro Gordo. I thought I might have pushed my luck a bit when it started to spit, fearing a soaki...

This week we walked up a hill to look at the Eagles. It’s been a very hot week in the valley, with temperatures up to 39 degrees in Granada, so we wanted somewhere with a cooling breeze. To try and cool things down a bit the town hall had switched on all the wind turbines in the valley. This had an immediate effect, there was a nice cool wind blowing up on the carretera de Cabra, I nearly regretted putting my shorts on. Why they can’t turn them round and have warm air blowing up from the coast in the winter is beyond me. The walks starts up near to the Venta del Fraile bar and follows a campo road for about 1km. After the easy road section the path heads uphill steeply into the forest. There looks to be a lot of footpaths to choose from but, in fact, they are all wild boar tracks that appear and then quickly disappear. It is just a matter of heading upwards until you get to where all the tracks converge at a dried up pond, where all the pigs meet after a spot of rain....

Hi This week it was our annual May weekend away and we went to Castril in the far north of Granada province. We had an early start because it was a long drive and we had a lot of things to fit into our day. I thought we would be able to stop for breakfast just before we got to Castril, unfortunately the bar I had chosen to stop at was closed. Not wanting to upset anyone before the walk had even started we headed into Castril. I have never been here before but even on our short visit it looks well worth a look around. After breakfast we returned to our plan, which was a drive up the Rio Castril. This is a beautiful valley and we followed the road as far as it went. This was the start of our first walk, to the Naccimento of the Rio Castril. It was an easy walk in the valley bottom to a spot where the river appears out of the rocks. The path then continued up the valley getting steeper all the time. At one point they had cut steps into the steep sided gorge, it felt like th...