It's January - lurching damply into February. Let's face it - it's a bloody miserable time of year. Short days, and what daylight there is has so far been mostly filled with brass monkey frost, snow or grey persistent rain. The flower decked footpaths of summer have become slithering death traps made of slurried mud and dog muck.
How does one escape the midwinter blues, especially after enduring the Christmas burden of being nice to people that you spend the rest of the year avoiding? Well, how about revisiting your last summer jaunt? I've been doing just that, and my current liferaft is to sip a warming Rioja and drift back to Spain, in September ....
Quite why the Picos de Europa are not overrun with brits is a bit of a mystery, considering how easily accessible they are to the economy traveller - in fact not much more expensive to get there from southern englandshire than it is to the highlands of Scotland.
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| David crossing a steep arete |
At the beginning of September we (brother-in-law David & I) took a Tuesday Ryanair flight to Santander where we picked up a hire car to drive to the Casa Cipriano in Sotres for the start of our walk the following day. We did a three day loop from Sotres, taking in the refuge under the
Picu Urriellu (Naranjo de Bulnes) where we spent a convivial evening, followed by a night interrupted by various climbers who had under-estimated the time that climbing Urriellu would actually take (they descended by head torch late at night). Then we went off on less frequented paths through some of the most spectacular limestone country that I have ever seen.
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| More upwardness |
A long trip on unfamiliar ground brings home the importance of careful navigation, and day two brought this point to the fore - twice! Observe the picture of me to the right. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you will see that I have a hydration tube clipped to the rucksack chest strap. This is an Osprey Hydraform and very good it is too - but there is a trap for the unwary in its cunning design. The tube attaches, not with a clip, but with powerful magnets on both the valve and the strap. This makes stowing the tube and valve very easy indeed. Put ir vaguely in the right area and it snaps smartly into place. So stow it before you use your compass and keep the compass well away! My oh-so- careful compass bearing was just slightly off. Alright, a lot off. Fortunately before we had not gone too far before we noticed that the sun was in the wrong place!
The other more general navigational point to note in the Picos is that whilst the main paths are waymarked, the maps of the area aren't exactly OS standard, and less frequented routes across bare rock and scree are not always that obvious on the ground. After lunch on day two we strayed off piste following a line of small cairns through a ravine. Unbeknownst to us, this was parallel to our intended route (which had no waymarks). The cairns led down a steep scree filled valley and after about 1k we realised that we were slowly turning away from the correct bearing. The map was consulted. Damn - we had come down the wrong ravine. We were just 500 meteres off course, but it was a hell of scramble to get back. The well defined path with the cairns was not on the map at all!
But that was no problem. We knew where we were. We knew where we wanted to go. Indeed we could see where we wanted to go. So off we trotted. It was just the unforeseen (and unmarked) ravines, bottomless potholes and sharp boot shredding rocks in between that made our progress slower than a three legged tortoise with arthritis. And to make the afternoon just perfect, on the last scramble I dropped a walking pole which bounced, teetered and plummeted down a pot hole. I could hear it rattle and chink ever more faintly for a good 30 seconds or so.
Fortunately just as we approached yet another impassable chasm we came across a shepherd bringing his flock of milking ewes to a new pasture, and he pointed out a faint trail that put us back on track with minimal effort. Frankly, after an afternoon's floundering, that was bit of a relief - and the evening beers when we finally ambled into Bulnes after a long day were very welcome indeed!
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| Naranjo de Bulnes |
But that bit of excitement aside, we had a superb trip. Blue skies, comfortable temperatures and as for the scenery - well it's just fantastic. An evening high in the Picos is sublime. Clear sky and stars above, a blanket of cloud below and just a few chamois for company ... well, and Dave of course.
Plus, as I mentioned right at the start, it's so cheap to get there. Here are the base costs (we put both rucksacks into one carrier - so only one luggage charge for two). Some sample prices:
- Return flights Stansted/ Santander: £91.98 pp. inc luggage.
- Car Hire: £55.38 plus fuel. We reserved a wee microcar, but actually got a very presentable Renault Clio.
- Hotel in Sotres: about £45pp inc dinner and drinks.
Not bad eh? And here are a few more pictures to tempt you. Early September seems the ideal time to me - the crowds have gone, and midweek you can pretty much have the place to yourself once away from the pinch points near the refuges and the odd village (not many of those - and those you do find are largely abandoned).
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| Wayside flowers |
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| Insane danglers on the Naranjo de Bulnes - look at the guy top left! (click to enlarge) |
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| A young couple enjoy a moment of solitude |
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| David meets some chamois (reminds me - must wash the car) |
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| A handy rope |
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| The shepherd's guard dog |
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| Bridge in abandoned village |
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On the funicular below the mountain from Bulnes to Poncebos
Our next September jaunt is already in the planning stage - the Mercantour National Park in the Alpes Maritimes - as my french is rather better than my Spanish, we may get to have a wider choice of menu - although one can grow to like the various chorizo and sheeps cheeses, a little variety goes a long way.
Toodle pip for now :-)
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