Site Designed, Produced and Maintained by
Pixelwave Design.
|
|
| ||||||
| Member Details | Session Description |
Toys Used |
| Owner:
squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2882 |
6th March 2017 Hiking - Walking: Puerto de la Ragua 2000 Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny Max Speed: Distance Covered: Monday 6th March – Shoe snow/hike ***** Puerto de la Ragua 2000 – Sunny – 3 hrs. I had a good night after going to bed early last night knackered but Mag not so good as we don’t think the height does her any favours as she gets a thick head and altitude nose especially when she is lying down:( We had the spot all to ourselves and woke to clear, sunny skies:) the ground was frozen but we didn’t notice the cold. It was too nice a day to lay around so got up early, had breakfast, packed some snacks. We got the snow shoes out and at 9.30 headed up what was the sledge slope on the opposite side of the road to our walk yesterday. There was a marked walk up to somewhere with a camera symbol meaning somewhere with a view so went that way. The sledging piste has all but disappeared and what snow there is left is mostly a pinky colour, covered in red dust from recent rain, apart from patches of very white snow that fell yesterday. It all looked very odd. We put our snow shoes on when we came across the first snow but that disappeared pretty quickly as the path ran through the edge of a lovely pine wood with a stream to one side. Water is quite a novelty, we are not used to seeing running water here in Spain as there is very little near the coast. We had to make a small detour when we lost the path markers. They are not great at painting the walk indicator stripes around these parts:( We were not the only ones to have walked this path this morning as there was loads of hoof marks and fresh horse poo! There were loads of birds about including a Rock Bunting, Crossbills, Crested Larks, Sardinian Warbler and Tits. We climbed out of the trees past some rocks onto a large plain and spotted seven wild horses feeding on the sparse vegetation. It was great to see them and one came right over to see if we had any tit-bits in our pockets, sadly he was disappointed. Not quite as wild as we thought obviously!! We followed the path up a gentle slope to the top where we got stunning views down into the next valley, the one facing away from the coast, and it was full of low cloud to the right with a range of snowy mountains to the left, just magic:) To turn our walk into a circular route we turned and headed to the taller peaks. We even got our snow shoes on again! My plan was to try and get to the highest of the peaks but the wind really got up which made it cold. So, we found a big rock to shelter and have our snacks before heading back, making fresh tracks all the way. We hadn’t seen anyone the whole time but there were two buses in the carpark now and we soon spotted the 100 kids in two groups having fun sledging and in the forest. How great to be brought up the mountain to have fun as a lesson!! As we walked through what was the weekends sledging area we were disappointed with the amount of litter left, it doesn’t matter what country you are in oafs get everywhere:( Back at the van, after covering over 4 miles being out 3hrs. 45mins, we had a sandwich. We watched the husky driving man we met on a quad bike yesterday dropping off 8 customers today after taking them to his dogs on a nine-person buggy we saw abandoned in the trees yesterday. We packed up and moved on, deciding to drive back the way we had come up. The weather was bad then and we missed a lot of it through low cloud so thought it would be nice to see it in the sunshine. We made the right choice as it was stunning! We hadn’t got far down when we realised that we were way over dressed as the temperatures shot up to 20 degrees:) It was a job to pick what to photograph next, fruit trees in full bloom to the most fantastic rock formations to terraces with some really nice white villages and the pics had to include Mag standing in the middle of the road (the theme of this holiday!) We even managed to find a garage to fill up with an attendant to do it for us! Then in another nice village we found running water to replenish our supply. With time getting on we started to look for somewhere to stop for the night with a sunny position to make the most of the late afternoon sunshine with stunning views of the Sierra Nevada’s. After one false run miles, down a dirt narrow dirt track (with Mag having kittens) we found the perfect place just outside Trevelez high above the valley with snowy mountains to the right and misty one to the left and the sound of running water below, just amazing. I made the most of the sunshine outside doing my exercises while Mag read her book in the van. Still 18 degrees at 6 o clock as the sun disappeared behind the mountains and then we were treated to the most amazing sunset. Back on track today after a couple of bad weather days, let’s hope it’s here to stay! We had no signal for our phone over the weekend so made the most of a clear signal in our new place to make contact with both Sons and get all their news :) Photo Gallery Here |
Toys Used:
Statsbar:
| |||||||
  |
|
|
|||||||
|
Web Design in Wales, UK by 
Pixelwave Design.
© Alan R Cole 2000...