Where's Bertie? He's still in the Aire at Elorrio, although we have moved along 4 spaces, as our previous slot was shaded in the middle of the day, keeping the sun off the solar panel.
Weather: Overcast start, gradually clearing to wall-to-wall sunshine.
As we looked across at the nearest rocky lump of a hill during yesterday's walk, I pondered out loud whether there would be a route up it. As we sat in the bar post-walk, a search of wikiloc.com confirmed there was. Moments later I had the route downloaded to the mapping software on my phone.
This morning we got up bright and early (or not so bright, as it was still dark as we breakfasted), with the intention of visiting the selected summit (Erdikoatxa, 1042m) and getting back early enough to move on. By that time we would have been here for slightly more than the 72 hours permitted in any one week.
For five miles we walked up hill, the first four being along a forest track, increasingly getting glimpses not only of our objective but of the hills around us. It was just a bit of a shame that the forecast blue skies hadn't materialised.
Still overcast as we approach our objective
The intention had been to visit the third lump on this ridge, but as we approached it looked very steep and rocky, and perhaps a bit more difficult than we were hankering after today. Suddenly the second summit looked more attractive.
It turned out that the second summit was small and somewhat 'airy', with a sheer drop to one side and a very sharp drop to the other. We paused only long enough to take some summit snaps and we were on our way back down when I realised that, with my concentration on holding on and not to trip over any of the rocks up there, I'd completely failed to look at the view!
Our return route was almost a retracing of steps, except that, a different (and not so easy) line was taken for the first mile.
By the time we paused for lunch, at the same spot, as we had taken elevenses on the way up, the cloud had finally cleared - and what views it gave:
It may have only been 2pm by the time we got back to Bertie, but we were quite content to be lazy for the rest of the day. It's been a while since we did a walk of any distance (this one was 10 miles) or with that much ascent (3100').
The one thing we failed to do during the rest of the day was to move on. This Aire has not even been half full whilst we have been here, and last night there were only two vans, so we decided that, as we are not putting anyone out, we would take a risk and stay an extra night. We will be on our way first thing tomorrow, although I fear that I'm going to have sore shins* and thus be scuppered for the run I'd wanted to do. We'll see...
(* Despite going up dozens and dozens of hills every year, if I have a break for even a few weeks, my shins complain loudly next time they're forced to walk down hill. Five miles of consistent down today was not to their liking).
Weather: Overcast start, gradually clearing to wall-to-wall sunshine.
As we looked across at the nearest rocky lump of a hill during yesterday's walk, I pondered out loud whether there would be a route up it. As we sat in the bar post-walk, a search of wikiloc.com confirmed there was. Moments later I had the route downloaded to the mapping software on my phone.
This morning we got up bright and early (or not so bright, as it was still dark as we breakfasted), with the intention of visiting the selected summit (Erdikoatxa, 1042m) and getting back early enough to move on. By that time we would have been here for slightly more than the 72 hours permitted in any one week.
For five miles we walked up hill, the first four being along a forest track, increasingly getting glimpses not only of our objective but of the hills around us. It was just a bit of a shame that the forecast blue skies hadn't materialised.
Still overcast as we approach our objective
The intention had been to visit the third lump on this ridge, but as we approached it looked very steep and rocky, and perhaps a bit more difficult than we were hankering after today. Suddenly the second summit looked more attractive.
It turned out that the second summit was small and somewhat 'airy', with a sheer drop to one side and a very sharp drop to the other. We paused only long enough to take some summit snaps and we were on our way back down when I realised that, with my concentration on holding on and not to trip over any of the rocks up there, I'd completely failed to look at the view!
Our return route was almost a retracing of steps, except that, a different (and not so easy) line was taken for the first mile.
By the time we paused for lunch, at the same spot, as we had taken elevenses on the way up, the cloud had finally cleared - and what views it gave:
It may have only been 2pm by the time we got back to Bertie, but we were quite content to be lazy for the rest of the day. It's been a while since we did a walk of any distance (this one was 10 miles) or with that much ascent (3100').
The one thing we failed to do during the rest of the day was to move on. This Aire has not even been half full whilst we have been here, and last night there were only two vans, so we decided that, as we are not putting anyone out, we would take a risk and stay an extra night. We will be on our way first thing tomorrow, although I fear that I'm going to have sore shins* and thus be scuppered for the run I'd wanted to do. We'll see...
(* Despite going up dozens and dozens of hills every year, if I have a break for even a few weeks, my shins complain loudly next time they're forced to walk down hill. Five miles of consistent down today was not to their liking).
No comments:
Post a Comment