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squiz
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Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3072
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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 :)
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