11 October 2011 Postero Alto to Peñon del Herrero

Saved from certain death by the Lone Ranger

This week we headed back to the Refugio Postero Alto ( the Hobbit house we had last been to on the 18th July). This time we were walking East on section 16 towards Las Chorreras.
Once again with a long distance to travel we left at 7 am, but with Rene back from her holiday and Plym recovered from last week we needed two cars, Marks friend Kevin also wanted to come with us so we arranged to meet them in Granada and then proceeded to drive to Jérez del Marquesado. The last time we had driven up to the Refugio it was a rough old road but they had just been out with the grader. The road is now in good condition if a little dusty, poor Mark following on behind had no idea where he was going, he was in a dust cloud the whole way.
The path starts by following a fire break before heading in an easterly direction along the edge of the forest. It crosses a number of barrancos, each one becoming steeper the further we travelled.
We stopped at the top of Cerro de los Muertos, I know it was a climb but it was not that bad, for a bite to eat, before what we thought would be an easy down hill section to our destination. It was while we were relaxing and enjoying the views that we noticed that the way markings for our intended path had been marked with a cross and with new markings leading across the hillside. Not knowing any better we decided to follow the new route, well, it was not really a route, just a series of red and white markings scattered over the hillside in a haphazard fashion. What was worrying was that you could see our intended track far below, in the distance, but with no obvious way of getting there. Graham thought it best we continue along the new route. Just when things were looking pretty hopeless and that the “hill of the dead” would claim some more victims, in true Hollywood style “The Loan Ranger on his faithful horse Silver” came racing over the hillside, this guy must have been a stunt man in the old Spaghetti movies, filmed just down the road, he and his horse were fearless . All that was missing was his six shooter, Tonto and a posse of Indians. Fearing the worst we re-grouped into a protective circle and put the women at the front to protect us. Skidding to a halt in front of us he told us our route was mal and that we faced a certain death if we continued, he said that vandals had come in the middle of the night a while back and painted these signs all over the hill.
We had two choices, we could either return and pick up the proper path or he could guide us to a acequia which we could follow and get back to our path. So following his lead we headed off after him as he guided us safely across the hillside to the acequia, which we then followed for a couple of kilometres and rejoined our track. It was now only a short walk to Penón del Herrero which was our destination for the day.
After a quick lunch we started back the way we had come but at the junction with the acequia we followed the correct waymarked path down and into the barranco of the Rio Publeo. The guide book mentions that impressive boulders threaten to come rolling down the hillside into the barranco and indeed this is what looks to have happened a while back and hence the unofficial diversion, it is a pity that the signs are still there even though the correct route is now  restored. Climbing back to the summit of Cerro de los Muertos we stopped for a quick refreshment break, poor Kees had all his brownie points removed by Graham for having raced off to the summit whilst the rest of us struggled up the hill. We could see our destination of Postero Alto only 3 km away in a straight line but with all the barrancos obstructing the route we still had 7 km to go. Arriving back and disappointingly finding the refugio closed we headed off to find a bar in Jérez de Marquesado, the only one we knew of was also closed, so we had to wait until Guadix for our cooling beer.
It was a good walk and while the diversion could have led to a tricky situation our Cowboy made it a great day out.
   
The walkers Mike, Kees, Rene, Plym, Graham, Mark, Kevin and myself.

Distance walked on route today, 11.2 km. Total distance today 22.5 km. Height climbed today 906 metres. Total distance walked on the Sulayr path 193.7 km. Distance left to do 106.3 km. Total height climbed 15,316 metres. Total distance walked 441 km.