Lecrin Valley Limpers

This week we had arranged two walks, an easy one with Hilary to Beznar and a harder one in Huetor. The harder walk started from the exit 259 on the A92 motorway, and we had arranged to meet up with the Granada contingent there at 9.40. How was I supposed to know that the motorway was reduced to a single carriageway and you had to go nearly to Guadix to turn around. Yes, they are resurfacing the road and they have closed the exits off, making a 27 km detour to get to our meeting point. At least everyone else was late in arriving as we all had to take the diversion.  With everyone assembled, goodness knows how many are still driving up to Barcelona trying to find somewhere to turn around, we set off on our walk, under a deep blue sky and the temperature was perfect. For the first couple of kms the path follows an easy 4X4 track. We then picked up the first of the advertised steep climbs, it’s all in the forest and a delightful path that turns and twists about a...

This week we had an easy walk from Dilar up to the Ermita Vieja. We had arranged to meet in the riverside carpark, unfortunately the last car in our very large convoy from Cozvijar got stuck in the traffic lights in Otura, and did not know where the carpark was. We were thinking of setting up a rescue party to go and search for them. Note:- we were only thinking about it, what’s a loss of 4 limpers when we already had 18. Fortunately after driving around Dilar for a while they managed to find the carpark and join the rest of us. It was cold down by the river, I mean proper cold, around 12 degrees and it was good to get the walk started to generate some heat. The way up to the Ermita is mostly along 4X4 tracks which makes for easy walking at a reasonable pace. The higher we climbed the warmer it got and we were soon stopping to take off our fleeces and jumpers. By the time we arrived at the Ermita the conditions were perfect so we stopped for our lunch break. After l...

Last week was our big walking weekend away, staying at the Poqueira refugio above Capileira. We started out on Friday afternoon with an easy, leisurely walk up to the refugio. It was not like last year when it was a boys only weekend, sleeping on the floor. This time we had real luxury, we had a bed, not each but one bunk bed that sleeps 10 people, boys, girls and kids all together, there was even a dog but he slept outside. There are actually 8 of these giant beds and, by the second night, every one of them was occupied, sheer bliss for the perfect night’s sleep. I must have been the only one amongst the other 79 who did not snore. (!!!)  There were two walks on Saturday. The first relatively easy and safe and the second one for the idiots amongst us, and there were 5 of us. All determined to throw caution to the wind and cross the vertical north face of Mulhacen. Both Martin and myself have been part way across this path before but none of us had ever done the full c...

There has been a serious change in the weather this week. It started with a terrific thunderstorm on Sunday evening (Sunday the 27th August), heavy rain on Monday and a marked drop in temperature for the rest of the week. Conditions are now perfect for walking and to help us celebrate the approach of Autumn we went on a circular low level walk from Meson los Prados.  The walk started from the bar, where we had arranged to meet Rafa but, after waiting a few minutes for him and unable to get a signal on our phones, we decided to move on. The walk passes through open countryside, farmland and forest. It’s a good combination with great views in all directions. On the way back we spied in the distance a couple sat having a spot of lunch, as we got closer the couple turned into Rafa and his friend, who had missed us by a few minutes at the start of the walk. After stopping for a short break with them we left them to continue with their walk and we followed the path back t...