Our destination this week was Postero Alto and the start of section 17.
The access point for this section is from Jérez del Marquesado and as we were approaching the pueblo at 8.30 in the morning we were stopped by the Guardia on a routine document inspection, with everything in order he bade us farewell, and then reprimanded me for setting off with my seat belt unfastened.
From the pueblo it is a 12km drive on a forest road that slowly gets worse the higher you drive, and terminates with a 2km drive up a fire break to the manned Refugio at Postero Alto. I think this is the weirdest building I have ever come across, I was expecting to see a family of Hobbits at any moment.
Leaving the car in the car park we picked up the Sulayr path as it descended through a thick pine forest and across a fast flowing river. The path was a complete change from other sections as it climbed through forest and rich pasture land, with docile bulls and cows along with horses and goats all roaming around the hillside with no constraints, it was a delight.
After 2 hours we left the forest behind us as we climbed up Piedras de Vicente. This is an open hillside with extensive views over the plain of Guadix. With no set destination in mind we set a limit to our exploration on the outward journey of 3 hours, this would give us a round trip of around 6 hours, sufficient in the high July temperatures.
When we stopped for lunch Kees announced that he had lost his sun glasses, as we were retracing our footsteps back to the Refugio we expected to find them along the path. We had not gone far when we came across one man and his dog walking the trail, stopping to talk with him he explained he was the advance party with his other 4 colleagues following on somewhere behind him. The dog was well kitted out with his own rucksack with 3 days supplies of food, he had not seen Kees glasses. Meeting up with the rest of the group a few minutes later we discovered another two Dutch men, one who had done the complete Sulayr route with this section the final one for him. What was surprising was that he was incredulous that we had a Dutchman with us, knowing all the trouble and strive that they cause and no, they had not seen the glasses. Mind their group was two English, two Dutch, one Spanish and a dog so what trouble they all get into I have no idea.
It was now starting to get hot, and we made rapid progress as we raced to get back into the relative cool of the forest, but, more important we thought we might be able to get a cold beer at the Refugio. With no sign of Kees’s glasses along the route, and all the time expecting to hear the sound of breaking glass under foot, we arrived at the Hobbit building and to our great delight we found it open and serving cold beers, Heaven can’t be better than this. All that was left now was the 1½ hours drive home.
One interesting item, Mount Everest is 8840 metres high so with today’s walk we have climbed the equivalent of the worlds highest mountain on our Sulayr trek.
This is probably the last section we are going to do for a few weeks as we seek cooler conditions higher up in the Sierras. For our summer excursions we are going to try and visit all the Lagunas in the Sierra Nevada range. I did suggest that we had to swim in each one but I think we have settled on a paddle instead.
The walkers Mike, Kees, Ray, and myself.
Distance walked on route today, 8 km. Total distance today 16 km. Height climbed today 554 metres. Total distance walked on the Sulayr path 124.9 km. Distance left to do 176.1 km. Total height climbed 8924 metres. Total distance walked 273.2 km.
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