More on Walking

Tami - at about 9000´in Andalucia´s Sierra Nevada

So...about the photo on the last post. The snowy mountains behind the Alhambra are the same peaks Tami is standing in above. After a few days of staring in awe at the range that rose up behind Granada, mountains which I had no idea were so dramatic, we decided to try to do some hiking in them.

One additional ingredient for traveling with a backpack and without your own vehicle is a decent guidebook. Tami is the mistress of planning and Lonely Planet´s Spain guide has been our book.

We figured out how to take a bus over to some villages high in the valleys on the opposite side of the range that looks down on Granada. The trip took about two and a half hours....and we only got a little queezy from motion sickness. At the end of the bus ride we stepped off in the little town of Capileira. Here...



Yep...amazing. It was as nice as it looks. For those of you who like the mountains and the occasional fantastic, romantic vacation, we stayed at the nicest little hostal, Hostal Atalaya (www.hostalatalaya.com). Check it. We had a super clean room with a balcony and a freakish mountain view for about $45 (breakfast included). From here we did two nice hikes. Actually, we did one nice hike and one mindblower of an epic day of travel by foot.

The big day, we took off after breakfast (Tami´s note about our late starts notwithstanding) walking up the one, winding road out of town. The road only went a couple miles before ending but we thought hitchiking might save us some time on the uphill. There was very little traffic but after a short while we caught a ride with two tourists in a rent a car. We road with them just long enough for the lady to ask if I worked in radio (because of my mellifluous voice, apparently....LOL) and the man to tell us he´d been born in Pune, India to a father who served in the Indian army (don´t ask me). Momentarily, they turned down a side lane for a different, and much lower, trailhead and we resumed our walk.

The road climbed the spine of a steep ridge zig-zagging back and forth in switchbacks of half a mile or so. After a couple of these, we decided to cut the distance and hike straight up between switchbacks. This way we´d save time but also ran the risk of missing a ride with any passing vehicles...a risk that seemed worth it since we had seen zero vehicles since we'd gotten dropped off far below. So.....of course...as soon as we were up into the pines, far enough from the road that we weren't sure it was possible to make it back in time to get our thumbs out for a ride....we heard a motor. We started up the mountain double-time. This wasn't easy. The trail was steep and now we were getting into thinner air. We could hear the vehicle trace the switchback to our right first getting quieter then growing louder as it approached. The sweat literally poured off of me as the edge of the road came into sight. We were both gasping but laughing, as well. Once we cleared the road edge, we high-fived each other just as the van came into sight. We put up our thumbs but the van was full of tourists that had paid to ride up then cruise mountain bikes back down the mountain. They were full and, fortunately for our morale, they went only a couple hundred more yards and pulled off to gear up for their ride back down. It wasn't a biggie, really. By our map we were now less than a mile from where the road ended and the terrain in which we walked was the kind of high country we sought anyway. It was the trail (and our legs) from this point on and quite enjoyably so.

Up we went along the ridge. Mulhacen, Spain's highest mainland mountain, periodically came into view. We walked in snow as much as not which was good as the spring sun was toasty. Up and up. The thing (or, one of the things) about hiking in alpine territory, is that the scale of things is so vast you don't have a normal frame of reference for judging things like distance. You see a point and walk toward it thinking it only a few hundred yards away. A half hour later you're still approaching it and what looked like rocks on its side are the teeth of small ridges themselves. Fortunately for us, we were in Spain, it was a beautiful day, we were healthy and really had not a thing in the world not to be totally happy about. Every step was literally a small gift and we were fully aware of it.

It's times like this when you think things can't get any better but, because you're happy and open, they often do. On the horizon of the ridge above, I saw something that looked familiar but not expected. I had to wrack my memory to place it. I'd only ever seen anything like it in natural history books or mounted on walls but sure enough, those names I memorized as a little kid came back to me: Ibex.



I really didn't even know they were still extant and I had no idea they were in Spain. They look for all the world like something you'd find only on the African Veldt. Cool, eh? If that isn't enough, toward the horizon, many miles away, we could see the Mediterranean and, above that, through some sixty miles of hazy, maritime sky, the mountainous coast of northern Morrocco. Please.....you're kidding me right? Nope.

Over the next few hours we saw three "colonias", as they call them in that area, of Ibex. At one spot we saw a little scuffle between two bucks.






To the victor go the spoils.










We hiked to just above 9,000 ft. The trail was almost all snow by then and pretty tough going. Our legs kept punching through the crust sometimes dropping us to our crotch. With just enough hours of light left to make it home, we turned and headed back toward Capileria. The trip down was about four hours, the air getting warmer and more fragrant and the light coming in more acute and golden with each step. We got into the village just in time to buy a nice bottle of rosado, head to our little balcony, liberate our aching feet and indulge in the fading hour or so of twilight. Ahhh....... And we mean it.