Up, and then, down.

June 1st, 2010 Posted by john
Three walkers stop to admire the view

A breather to admire the view

Today, we’ll have to behave, said Jesús as we got off the coach. That was all that was said about the previous walk. We had other things to think about.

The walk on Sunday started from the main road that runs to the East of the Picos de Europa, one I’ve travelled along numerous times on the way to Poncebos or Arenas de Cabrales or the delightfully named Poo. The start was at 200m and before us rose the Eastern Massif of the Picos, still flecked with snow at the top, despite the sunny, summery conditions.

jesús at the top
Jesús capturing the view from the top
We started up, and continued, and continued. The thing with walking in the Picos is that it’s frequently either up or down, traversing at height is less common. The reason they’re called the Picos is that they are pointy. According to some folk, the walking here is harder than, say, the Pyrenees even though it’s not as high, largely because of the steepness. It was 9km and 1400m of up to pico Cuetón. I was grateful that some cloud cover developed and even more grateful for the breeze at the top.

My method when it’s really steep is to start slowly and continue slowly. I often stop and let other, slower walkers catch up, we chat a little and off we go again, and even though I’m slow, I’m not the slowest. At a col near the top some people decided to skip the peak so we left them lounging on the grass, enjoying the views. From the peak (at 1650m) there were fantastic views of the central massif of the picos, although the Naranjo was obscured by cloud. We stayed long enough to take a few photos and to sign our peak card (to be left in a metal container at the base of a stainless steel sculpture of an ice axe at the peak (which had been left there by another mountain group)). We went back down (happy to no longer be going up) to the others and refilled water bottles from a patch of snow (some people just filled their bottles with snow, I constructed a little stone arrangement to direct the snow melt into my bottle, cold cold water, mmm).

<

div class=”mceTemp”>

<

dl class=”wp-caption alignright” style=”width: 410px;”>

descending

Down, down, down

Then the descent. 1400m in 3km. That’s quite steep. It took almost three hours, which gives an idea of the steepness. It took so long partly because of the views, you had to stop to look, or you’d risk snapping an ankle. By the time we made it to Camarmeña and a cool fountain, we were all fixated on the idea of a beer or cider. In the end it was cider with lemonade (gaseosa), very refreshing, and very necessary.

My knees can still feel it today.

Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Comments are closed.