The start of it

For a long time, whilst out walking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, we have come across footpath signs to Sulayr but we were never able to connect the signs to any known path, they always seemed to point to somewhere high in the Sierra Nevada. Then in August 2009 whilst on the Mulhacen mountain bus Paco, the guide, explained that it was a 300 km circular path running around the Sierra Nevada National park.
Slowly my interest in this walk was aroused, but it always looked like it would be a ambition never undertaken. The path runs around the Sierras at about 2000 meters, and the thought of taking our poor little Renault Kangoo up all those access tracks to the start of a new section of the walk filled me with dread, it was our only car.
In 2011 the chance came to buy another car, and the thought of walking the Sulayr path gained momentum. What was needed were some good buddies to share the experience. My wife has always classed the “The A Team” of the Lecrin Valley Limpers as something out of “The Last of the Summer Wine”. A group of old men who go out in to the mountains for the day and come home raggy arsed, tired and dirty. After careful consultation with fellow team members who jumped at the chance of expeditions into the high Sierras I decided to buy a small 4X4.
This is the story as it unfolds.

Friday, September 16, 2011

September 8 2011 Section 1 San Jerónimo


At the visitor centre

This week we had a large turnout for our Sulayr walk, along with the usual suspects Mark and Graham have returned to Spain after their vacation in the UK, and Graham’s son Danny was out for a holiday as well.
This necessitated a rethink to our usual off road expeditions, we needed somewhere where a main road crossed the path and was not too far from home because Kees had to be home early to pack for his holidays. We had driven along the 6.9 km track that is used as the path for section 1 back in June but we can’t count that towards our grand total. Mind you if we are still plodding away at this walk for a few more years we might be all reduced to driving along the tracks in order to complete it.   
Now foolishly I expected that as we were doing a circular walk the start and finish point would be the same, well that makes sense to me. I knew where the walk ended, it was at the Dornajo Visitors centre on the A 395 Sierra Nevada road, so we all met there. I thought this would be a good place to take a photo of our expanded group, in front of the sign proclaiming the start of the longest circular footpath in Spain. There is no sign, nada, nunca, nothing. You could be in Siberia for all the information that is available, what a lost opportunity to inspire folk to walk the path. When we had driven the route we had come out by the Hotel Don José 100 metres down the road so we set off for this point, there were still no signs. Walking behind a small hill, hidden from the road and facing the wrong way, we came across a sign board for the walk. No wonder we have never seen anyone else doing the walk!
The path is along an easy forest track that heads down to the Rio Monachil from where we had done the second part of section 1 in June. We made rapid progress to the river stopping to do a bit of blackberry and apple scrumping along the way. I knew this was going to be a short section, but if we had turned around as usual when we reached the river we would have been back at the cars by 12 am. Obviously this was not acceptable, we had not even raised a sweat.
The map was showing a path that needed to be explored up the barranco Dehesilla so we set off to extend our day out. The path turned out to be a delight, in a hidden valley forested with a large variety of trees. We will have to come back sometime and explore it further. After a suitable extension, and with the temperature starting to climb, we made our way back to the Rio Monachil.
Dan decided to stop for a quick swim in the river whilst the rest of us started the 300 metre, 6km climb  to get back to the cars. As we were passing the Don José we decided to stop for a beer, this turned out to be very expensive, it will definitely not be on the list of bars to call at again.

  
The walkers Mike, Kees, Ray, Rene, Graham, Danny, Mark and myself.

Distance walked on route today, 6.9 km. Total distance today 18.3 km. Height climbed today 349 metres. Total distance walked on the Sulayr path 153.8 km. Distance left to do 146.2 km. Total height climbed 11182 metres. Total distance walked 346.1 km.  
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)