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October 14 to 16, 2009
Yours Truly, Pilar and JayPea
3 days of beautiful hiking
1 day of self inflicted suffering
# people encountered: 0
# vultures encountered: ~50
Sierra de Guara, Espana
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Setting off into the distant hills. |
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Setting sun lighting the way. |
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We camped that evening at the ridge on the horizon. |
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Next morning. |
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The summit we decided to bushwack/scramble to. |
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The views from the summit of Pena del Picon (1412 m), with Huesca and Zaragoza way in the background somewhere. Nobody's been on this summit for at least 5 years! |
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Looking at our next destination north: el Collicierco, with the Pirineos in the background. See the beautiful looking fields leading up to the col? Nice and pleasant-looking, hey? |
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El Picon from the Cresta de la Cobeta. The suffering has begun: "ow, what's up with absolutely everything being sharp and scratchy?"
Even the grass you see here was not pleasant to walk through. "Buaaff, it can't last long. Let's keep going..." |
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1.5 hours later, deep in the Barranco de las Gorgas. The only thing that doesn't scratch too badly is this Boxleaf Honeysuckle (I think). The only problem is that it grows taller than our heads! |
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JayPea absolutely lovin' it. |
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3 hours later: remember those beautiful grassy fields that we saw from the summit of the Picon? Well here they are, from close up. Don't they still look nice and fluffy and wonderful? |
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... well doesn't THIS look fluffy and wonderful too? |
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Yaaaaaarghhhh! 3 hours to do 1 km. Owwwww my legs. Somebody shoot me. Isn't there supposed to be a trail here somewhere? |
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5 hours later: looking back down the 2 km of the most brutal bushwacking I have ever done, in my entire life! And I've done a bunch, trust me! It's amazing that we didn't get attacked by wild boars, just to finish us off. |
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Fffrggghhbbbllllllgggggg$%##@@ bushes from hell! 500 m left to go to the col. Nothing right? Well, you know when you cut yourself while, say for example, trying to crawl through a rose bush, and you have like this big open wound somewhere? Now imagine taking one of them rose bush branches and rubbing them nice and hard all over your wound for the equivalent of 500 m walking time. Well now you get it. Yaaaaaaarggggghhh!!! |
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So clever us, at 400m from the col, we somehow started to use our brains again, and decided to try to wrap our fleeces and bits of our foam mattresses around our legs. And hey presto! It worked. Oh well, it builds character I guess. Remind me, however, never to bushwack in the Sierra de Guara ever again! Anyway, this is the col, and the view down the other side. The summit in the background is the Tozal de Guara (2078 m). From here, there was miraculously a trail! In fact, at the col, and facing the opposite direction (ie it was meant for people coming in the opposite direction to us!), was a sign saying something to the effect of "Don't even think of crossing into this valley cause it's reserved for wild boars and vultures. And besides you'd be crazy to try. Parque Nacional de la Sierra y Canones de Guara." Grrrr, thanks for putting a sign up on the lower end too, you nitwits. Oh well, at least it was wild and beautiful. |
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Some mushrooms we picked on the other side. |
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Second night: campsite somewhere in the dark. |
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6:30am next morning, we set off through these beautiful fields, to loop back to the car down through the pinnacles in the background. |
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All along the top of this ridge were perched dozens of huge vultures. Wild! This is the Barranco de San Martin. |
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Oof, finally back at the car. Who's idea WUZ this trip anyway? Jeez. |
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