Posts Tagged ‘grupo naranco’

En castellano It wasn’t going exactly to plan.

We had left the coach, twelve hardy souls who were planning on doing Torrecerredo, at Sotres (880m), but the lowish cloud and the forecast scuppered the original idea of going up to the refugio Urriellu via the path to the South East and instead we opted to go the normal route via Pandébano (1212m) and past the collado vallejo (1540m). The weather was misty and drizzly and generally not the most pleasant but it eased off and we dried out a little, then on the last half hour pull up to the refugio (1953m) it came down again with a wet vengeance. We arrived at the refugio earlier than expected, wet through and dispirited.

So this was not the plan, not at all

After a few hours of sitting and waiting (and chatting and walking round keeping warm) it was time to eat and that raised spirits. The refugio has a capacity of about a hundred but given the poor conditions there was just us, a group of about thirty from Madrid and a smattering of other walkers and climbers. The food was okay, thin noodle soup followed by stewed lentils and then meatballs, when the pudding of fruit salad (can you call it a fruit salad if it’s just peaches and pears? I’m not sure) Ignacio commented that he hadn’t needed his fork, it was spoon spoon spoon then little spoon. There’s not much to do in these huts after dinner so we retired to the dormitory and slept.

A promising start

Dawn had actually brought the sun, or at least clear skies and after a less than hearty breakfast (biscuits, melba toast, butter, jam, cocoa) we set off up the Brecha de los Cazadores (hunter’s gap) (2300m or so), and on to the Jou de Cerredo (2400m or so).

Still on the way up, just past Hunter's Gap

The path is pretty well marked until you leave the normal hut-to-hut path and head for Torre Cerredo, then it’s a bit thinner, and you have to cross a few slabs. These would normally be no problem, but the previous night’s rain, combined with the freezing overnight temperatures meant that a lot of the rocks were coated with ice and were a mite slippy. A couple of the slabs were crossed entertainingly high, say, 20m above a rocky terrace. It’s a good job it’s grippy Spanish limestone and not the polished English stuff.

Delicacy on ice

We reached the base of the peak and agreed that the ice would make the ascent too dangerous (it’s a proper scramble, and you have to come down the same way). So we sat there and basked in the sun and had Eccles cakes (well Liz and I did, blimey they’re good, I wonder if we could introduce them here). A few people came down from the peak and reported that they hadn’t been able to go up because of the ice. So the right decision.

At the refugio de los cabrones

That just left the down. We descended steep paths to the refugio de los Cabrones (2060m) where we refilled water bottles and had a little peek at the cute 28 place hut, then a bit of a climb (more slabs, some cables, some old tatty rope in some parts) and then a long stoney path down through cloud to the Majada Amuesa (1386m). A majada is a high meadow, there were no cows though, only  vultures swooping and landing. Then a punishing descent over mud covered slippy rocks to Bulnes (647m) during which we were just thinking of a cold beer in one of the bars there. All that remained was the hour’s walk down from Bulnes to Poncebos (220m) to complete a long day.

No pasaba según lo planeado.

Habíamos bajado del autobús en la curvona de Sotres (880m) , doce fuertes quien pensaban en hacer el Torrecerredo pero las nubes bajas y el pronostico echó por tierra la idea de subir hasta el refugio de Urriellu por el camino del sureste y en su lugar elegimos a ir por el camino normal por Pandébano (1212m) y por el collado Vallejo (1540m). Hacía niebla con orbayu, un tiempo desagradable pero lo peor pasó y secamos un poco. Después, durante la ultima media hora subiendo hasta el refugio (1953m) llovió de nuevo de verdad. Llegamos al refugio mas temprano que esperábamos, empapados y desanimados.

Después de unas horas de sentarse y esperar (y charlar y pasearnos de un lado a otro para calentarnos) llegó la hora de cenar que nos animó. El refugio tiene la capacidad para alrededor de cien pero en tan malo tiempo había nosotros, un grupo de madrileños y unos pocos escaladores y excursionistas. La cena fue regular, una sopa de fideos, lentejas y después albóndigas, cuando llegó el postre de ensalada de frutas (no sé si es una ensalada de frutas si contiene solo peras y melocotones) Ignacio comento que no había usado el tenedor, sopa con cuchara, primer plato con cuchara, segundo, cuchara, postre, cucharita. No hay mucho para hacer en los refugios así que nos retiramos y nos acostamos.

Amaneció con sol, o por lo menos un cielo despejado entonces después un desayuno ligero (bizcochos, pan tostado, mantequilla, mermelada, colacao) salimos hacia la Brecha de los Cazadores (2300m más o menos) y después hasta el jou de Cerredo (2400m más o menos).

El camino es bien marcado hasta que sales del camino normal entre refugios y tiras para el Torre Cerredo, en este caso queda mas estrecho y tienes que cruzar por unas losas, normalmente no causarían ningún problema, pero después la lluvia y la temperatura baja de la noche anterior muchas de las rocas quedaban cubierta de hielo y resbaladizas. Cruzamos unas lozas con una altura entretenida, 20m encima de una terraza rocosa. Menos mal que es caliza española con adherencia no la inglesa pulida.

Llegamos al base del pico y decidimos que el hielo significó que la escalada sería demasiada peligrosa (hay que trepar, y tienes que bajar por la misma vía), así que nos sentimos y disfrutamos el sol, comimos “Eccles cakes” (un pastelito Inglés) (pues por lo menos Liz y yo comimos así, son buenos, me pregunto si podríamos introdulirlos aquí). Unas personas bajaban y nos dijeron que no habían sido capaz de subir por el hielo, entonces fue la decisión correcta.

Solo nos quedaba la bajada. Bajamos por senderos empinados hasta el refugio de los Cabrones (2060m) donde las cargamos las cantimploras y echamos una miradita al refugio guapo con solo 28 plazas, después, una subida (más losas, unos cables, una cuerda muy antigua y estropeada) y luego un sendero pedregoso tras las nubes hasta la Majada Amuesa(1386m). Luego un descenso duro por rocas que estuvieron cubiertas de barro hasta Bulnes (647m), durante que pensábamos solo de unas cervezas bien frías en un bar allí. Lo único que nos quedó fue el camino de una hora desde Bulnes hasta Poncebos (220m) para acabar un día largo.

Snow capped

Sunday’s walk was originally slated to start in León, but the last couple of weeks have been a bit cold and there’s been a bit of snow in the hills so the powers that be changed the route on Thursday. It had been raining in Asturias more or less constantly but on Sunday morning the skies cleared, the sun shone and the temperature went up. We started walking towards snow capped peaks through the new spring growth in the woods, I assume there was a feast of spring green but I could see about three distinct shades of green, bright, light and dark. I was chatting with Amaia and Ruben, it was their first time coming along with the group (Amaia is one of the people I give classes to, so naturally we have been talking about mountains and stuff) although they’re pretty experienced.

Nacho and Joaquim enjoy the steep snow

As ever in Asturias there’s a fair amount of up. Some folk go faster than others… I’m not one of the fastest, preferring to enjoy the scenery and not sweat like a very sweaty thing (in this I usually fail, but hey, points for trying no?). We reached a meadow where a couple of the others had stopped. Paco, one of the leaders, said that a few people had gone ahead to go up Peña Rueda. Nacho and Joaquim said they’d go too and I thought I’d go along seeing as Amia and Ruben were ahead as well. So we set off up the to the peak (thinking it was a valid alternative route). It was steep and snowy, but not icy so it wasn’t hard, apart from the steepness. It was about 600m of ascent in the snow and when we reached the top we had some fine views of the walls of hills that separate Asturias from the rest of Spain.

We had to hurry off the top, a couple of clouds were beginning to threaten. Julio (him of the salt and the navigational ‘adventures’) and Pepe marched off along a fine ridge. We stumbled along behind in the very soft snow, often up to our thighs. Excellent fun but tiring.

Julio, bad lad

We got below the snow and into a forest, still descending a 50 degree slope over wet leaves and slippy logs. I took a few tumbles but Julio had the best fall, rolling over three or four times before stopping thanks to a sturdy tree. It took a long time. Finally we reached the river at the bottom of the valley  but we had to go up again to bypass a gorge with sheer walls. I was beginning to regret doing the peak as we were now a little bit late.

Up and down, up and down in the woods until finally we reached an open field and saw a small path open up. Pepe had by this time disappeared ahead.

We got to the bar just as the others were starting to eat (the plan had been to have lunch at this bar, where they do a famously good rice pudding). It was 5:30, the descent had taken us four hours. We ate, drank and generally enjoyed the meal. Then I found out that what we had been doing hadn’t been an approved alternative at all and the president was a little put out with us (and rightly so given what I know now). I decided not to make my excuses and just apologised profusely (he said it was fine, and he was more annoyed at a couple of the others.) We felt terrible, Amaia and I discussed it outside, they felt embarrassed, but there was nothing they could have done about it, they didn’t know who was who. I had a raft of excuses but really I should have stayed with Paco (although I’m not sure how I could have known that at the time).

The easy way down

So, for future reference. Identify who the leaders are. Stick with the leaders. Always ask if there’s an official alternative. Never follow Julio.

Still, the peak was breathtakingly good, and the rice pudding was lovely.

Pepe wonders about mud and sun

As the weather improves, the chaps (and chapesses) in Grupo Naranco get more cheerful. The amounts of clothing, gaiters and umbrellas gets less and less, people stop scanning the sky as we head out on the bus, confident that it won’t be as grey as in the winter. Pepe works as a security guard up at the hospital and I bump into him most weeks on my way to or from the classes there. We say hello and wonder aloud if the next walk will be sunny or not, or if there’s finally going to be a walk without mud (it is an unwritten, and unspoken rule that all walks must contain a section on either a very muddy path or up or down a stream). It hasn’t happened so far.

Coming down

Sunday was forecast to be glorious, until Friday when the forecast changed to hazy, then cloudy. So far so normal for Asturias. Friday and Saturday had been balmy in the city so we had high hopes. We were heading to San Isidro, the ski station (I’d say resort but it’s not big enough… what do you use when it’s a place to ski but not really big enough for a holiday? Resort seems too grand) in León. We’d walk from there North into Asturias. As ever the landscape is stunning, patches of snow amongst the limestone and grass, with hundreds of tiny daffodils… a host? a hostess? We walked up to Peña de viento, and as we got to the top, as ever, the clouds covered everything north of us (ie everything in Asturias). We stopped for a snack and to watch the clouds coming up and over the peaks, enjoying the sunshine when it appeared.

Hulooooo

We descended on snow slopes rather than ankle snapping scree, enjoying the softness of the spring snow, where you can put your heel down hard and be sure of not slipping. All too soon we were below the snow, and the cloud, filling up water bottles with icy meltwater. We stopped in a meadow formed from moraine dam and ate empanada (basically a foccacia baked with chorizo and pork fat (Liz took the pork fat out of hers, I didn’t)). Then down a track for a couple of hours along the side of a big valley, passing high altitude bee hives and heather covered hills… and a couple of muddy sections. Just enough time for a shandy at the bottom before a snooze on the coach home.

oh, there you are, taking photos again...

The forecast said sun. But it also said that there was a cloudbank heading in from the east, snowing heavily over the Basque country. We were hoping for some stunning views of the Picos de Europa, that planned walk was to take us up the hills just to the north east of the Picos and if all went well we’d have the snowy peaks on one side and the sea on the other.

As it turned out, the tops were in cloud and we all felt a little disappointed. So we made up for it with snowball fights when we decided we were high enough (ie, just below the mist) for the team photo.

So yet another peak we have to go back to, what a damn shame.

It was a learning experience for everyone. Pompeyo had raised the issue at the AGM (and a few times before, sounding people out). What about those members of the group who had never in their lives put a pair of skis on? Why not use the knowledge of the group to give them a taster of skiing so they could decide whether or not they liked it.

They don't know what they've let themselves in for

It seemed like a reasonable idea, a few people agreed. So that’s what we did.

The ‘knowledgeable’ folk were: Pompeyo, Carmen, Me and Liz.

So we were teaching (coaching, pulling up from the floor, encouraging, trying not to wince) some absolute novices. Let’s be clear, we were not trying to teach them to ski, only teach them enough to stop (turn if at all possible) and to use the lift, and of course, let them have a go at putting on boots, getting up after a fall, that kind of thing. It didn’t  hurt that the plan included a discount on gear hire (€10) and the option of a big lunch (€12).

We went to Fuentes de Invierno (I took my camera but the visibility was so bad that it never left my pocket). Spring snow (i.e. wet). We had a quick recap of necessary vocab (ski tips: espatulas, the back of the ski: talon, edges: los cantos, bindings: sujetadores, brake!: frena, snowplough: cuña) in the car and off we went.

Chaos, absolute chaos... like herding cats

We marched up the bottom of a long flat green piste and set to work.

There’s nothing like watching absolute novices to show you how much you have learned (and to demonstrate some appropriate cursing, meca is the Asturian equivalent of “bugger”, because it is basically the short form of me cago en el mar (poo in the sea!) although you can soften it even more by using “me caches el el mar“). As expected there was much falling, flailing, yelping and laughing. What seemed to us painfully slow was for them frighteningly speedy, but they all seemed to enjoy it. I’ll be interested to hear from Noel what he thinks about teaching real beginners. Fuentes de Invierno has a ski school, but there seemed to be a huge number autodidacts today (that would be, all over the place).

After a few goes down this little slope, Sabi, one of my charges told me to say los giros not las giras (ie masculine not femenine) for the turns, as the femenine means a tour. This was a long way from being my only mistake in Spainsh today (I paid special attention to the ski instructors I passed later in the day for good phrases: no te tiras! (don’t lean back) was one of the most used).

After lunch Liz and I went up to tootle around (in the zero visibility) and the others (those still standing/willing) paid for a single go on a lift. There were only a couple of injuries, despite the ma

ny falls, nothing too serious (fingers crossed). I think it was a success, half of them will be back, I’m sure.

Queimada Flames 5 Originally uploaded by hegarty_david.

So there we were, in the Atapuerca hotel (described accurately as ‘for truck drivers’) an isolated place with a couple of villages close by, but too far to walk to after a long day outside.

After dinner Ignacio said we’d be having the Queimada. Then, seeing the blank looks on our faces they proceeded to explain.

You take a litre or two of orujo (preferably home made, with a high alcohol content), chop orange peel, apples, lemon peel and add them and coffee beans, and a ton of sugar. All this goes into a ceramic cauldron.

Then you light the thing and stir it with a ladle (hopefully not made of wood). When the flames go completely blue, you put them out and serve it.

It’s warm, sweet and quite strong (even after the burning off process).

While it’s being burned you’re meant to recite a conjuro (a spell) which is a call to the earth, wind, sea and fire to purify the drink and share it with souls of absent family and friends. So of course we did this, fifty or so people, much to the amusement of the few additional guests in the bar.

Yes, all this was done in the hotel bar. A health and safety nightmare!

Last year’s leaves left. Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

And they were right.

For the May holiday (no wussing out and moving it to a Monday here, the first of May is the day of the workers and is traditionally accompanied by demonstrations and union leaders shaking their fists while orating… at least this year they were angry in a focussed way) we went away to Castilla y León with the walking group.

Winter has been a bit long here (I had my first snow day on the fourth of October last year and we had a snowy weekend in León… ) eight months in fact. The news shows were saying that this year’s ski season has been the longest for a good while, at the same time as showing skiers in Granada.

So: we went south, to the other side of the mountains, where the nights are cold and the days are colder (until summer when the days are unbearable). We were in the Sierra de la Demanda, somewhere I’d never heard of before, but it was beautiful countryside, and on Saturday’s walk we had stunning views of snow capped mountains far far to the south and way off to the west.

As we came back over the mountains into Asturias you could see the cloud spilling over from the north. We emerged from the tunnel separating León and Asturias (called el negron (the really black one)) into murky grey cloud and the bus filled with happy murmurs of glad to be home.

Later it rained.

I usually take a little hip flask of whisky on the walks, just for a drop at the summit and to share it around, for most of the group have only tried Johhny Walker or (shudder) Hundred Pipers (or even DYC: Spain’s very own whisky, only to be drunk when drunk, and even then, only with coke or something to cover the taste). Andrés brings Orujo or other home made spirits, or home flavoured. These are usually sweet, but pleasant enough. He also bakes and cooks and brings along tortillas and tarts and cakes. You can’t refuse either, well, we can’t anyway.

A couple of others carry wine skins. Bernardo (the chap in his eighties) was scoffing at the amount the youngsters (Paco, in his mid fifties) carry. He pointed to his very small knapsack (the kind of cloth and leather, buckled job that was probably all the rage in the forties) and said he had his jacket, his hat, his umbrella and in his bag just a half litre of wine and some cheese, meat and bread and his knife and that was it. No water…

So we’ve had to try the skins, they keep the wine cool, but there’s a knack to it. We were told, you have to hold it like a woman, soft around the neck and squeeze the bottom hard (followed by quick ‘it’s a joke, it’s a joke’ comments, in case we hadn’t got that they weren’t being serious).

Of course we had faces full of wine in no time.

“There will be pinchos up to here” Julio said, gesturing up to his chin. This sounded pretty good because pinchos are the bar-top sandwiches we normally have for breakfast on the walks. However this was after our breakfast stop (in which a coach load of hungry Spaniards descend on a solitary barman and demanded coffees and pinchos) so perhaps pinchos had another meaning.

Gorse.

It’s another word for gorse and there was a lot of it. We waded through pathless gorse for at least three hours, maybe more. With thin trousers it was quite painful after the first hour.

The walk this weekend was supposed to have great views but it was pretty much cloud and drizzle all day. And the path we followed (a low level alternative in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the cloud) was a little overgrown. Julio and Pompayo had hoces (sickles on long sticks) and spent a long time hacking away at trees and bushes while we queued behind.

It wasn’t the best walk we’ve ever done but the small glimpses of the oak filled mountains of the Muniellos nature reserve suggest that it’ll be definitely worth a return visit

We had baths when we got back… the gorse exfoliation made Liz yelp when she got in… gaiters are on the list for tomorrow’s shopping.

“Es duro” said Ignacio (it’s hard). Blimey he was right. It was the first Sunday back with the walking group and they’d picked a doozy. We started at the lowest point of the road below Sotres. Liz and I did this part of the walk a few years back. I was happily chatting away when one of the girls asked if I was doing the whole thing or the easy alternative. You’ll have to shift, she said, if you’re doing the whole thing, you have to catch up to the others…

In half an hour we’d reached Collado Vallejo (a saddle) where us gluttons for punishment would strike out left up the side of a whopping great hill towards the Vega de Uriello. This high goat strewn meadow (for that is what vega means, makes you think about Las Vegas) is at the foot of the north face of the Naranjo de Bulnes (also called Picu Uriellu) which looms 600m above. There’s a refugio where rubbish coffee may be bought and sleep may be had if you’re off elsewhere. We had lunch, it had taken 4 hours to get up to the refugio at 1950m. After an hour we set off down.

Down is where it got duro. We had about 1750m of unremitting downness (in 7km), on scree, on rock, on slippy sandy muck, a little downclimbing as well. By halfway my thighs were complaining, shaking as I took another step down. It was a warm day and I was sweating buckets (I drank 4 litres, thanks to the springs en route). We arrived at Bulnes and contemplated taking the funicular train down, but not for long and not with any seriousness. Another hour and we reached the bar, where the alternative group were on their second, third or fourth beers and waters.

“Que tal?” asked Ignacio (How’re you doing), “Te dice que era duro” (I said it was hard). I smiled, sipped my beer and said “me gustó mucho, es vale la pena” (I liked it, it’s worth the effort).