Trekking Diaries – Sierra Nevada (Mountaineering)

Day 17th

We reached Granada in 17 of August and after a stop in the commercial zone to a supermarket to search for condensed milk in a tube (Antonio’s ideas), we head off to the center of the city hopping to find some information about any trekking routes and topographic maps of the mountain. Quickly we both discovered that in Granada we wouldn’t find anything so we set off for the mountain following the indications to Sierra Nevada that would lead us to Pradollanos. After ascending by car around 1000 m we found a information center, there we could find a topographic map with suggested trekking routes graded by technical difficulty, time spend, physical difficulty. We had been successful with our goal but since we were there, we decided to proceed ascending to Pradollanos at 2075 m of altitude and afterwards to the highest point you are allowed to go by car 2500m of altitude. There were some coffee shops/restaurants where we took an ice cream moment. After carefully considering we decided to do a 2 days route Trevelez – Poqueira – Mullacén – Trevelez. Afterwards we set off for Trevelez its took us about almost 2h to get there, taking a mountain road from the exit of A44 to Lanjarón until Trevelez.

Trevelez is a small village located in the base of the mountain, the highest altitude village in Spain located around 1550m. The village is very beautiful when seen from far, all the houses are painted white, I can only imagine due to the same reason that in Portugal houses in the south are painted white (in the summer its hot, hot and hot…)and its shape ascends in the mountain. We stayed for the night in a camping park close to the village.

http://www.campingtrevelez.net/

Comments: There are several route possibilities according to the time you want to spend in the mountain, maybe the most famous one is the Integral 3000m that is a route that takes you from one side of the mountain to the other side crossing all the peaks with altitude superior to 3000m of altitude, a very interesting route in my opinion I would have liked to do it, but unfortunately this route takes a minimum of 4 to 5 days trip and we only had two. The most emblematic peaks Veleta, Alcazaba and Mullacén as well as the lagoons at the base of Mullacén (siete lagunas) are must go places, other than that it’s a little up to your own preferences. Veleta can be easily reached starting from Pradollanos, there is even a mini-bus service that takes almost to the peak. For Mullacén there are several possibilities coming from Veleta, Siete Lagunas among others, the technical difficulty of the trails is not very high, therefore any person with a minimum experience on mountain can do it. For Alcazaba I would say the best option is take the trail of the Siete Lagunas and from there proceed to Alcazaba. Although we first decide to spend the night in Poqueira following the locals advice we end up doing the siete Laguna trail and staying over on close to the biggest lagoon.

http://www.nevasport.com/sierranevada/montana/05integral.php (in spanish)

Trekking Diaries – Sierra Nevada (Why choose Sierra Nevada)

Sierra Nevada is mainly known in the winter because it’s big ski village (Pradollanos), the biggest in the surroundings meaning south of Spain (the biggest I’ve seen, although I’m not exactly very experience when comes to ski, on the contrary).

So why go to Sierra Nevada in the summer, for once is low season so there are less people in the mountain, the temperature in the mountain is very nice of around 20-27ºC at 2500m of altitude during daytime, its a very interesting with a good scenic view mountain, and above that, it has the third highest peak in Europe (after the Mont Blanc and Mt Etna) Mullacén with 3482m of altitude (impressive) and finally is always a good opportunity to get into the mountains again!
Although when comparing to others mountains in Spain like Picos da Europa, this last one wins due to its truly magical scenery, Sierra Nevada is still worth of a visit!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Nevada_(Spain)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulhacén

And besides the mountain Granada is a beautifull city with an Unesco classified World Heritige Site, Alhambra that deserves a visit, the tickets are bought in the day you visit, but be carefull, altough 7000 people are allowed to visit the place each day, these 7000 tickets fly....Have to be there early to get tickets (rumour says around 4 a.m.).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra

Big birds

One of the things of being on the other side of the world is that everytime I want get back to Portugal have to sustain around 10 to 12 hours inside a airplane! The first time I have to confess it was horrible, i didn't felt much sleepy and find what to do in this (seems like non-ending) period of time can be sometimes a big challenge! I don't feel like reading, get tired of watching the movies, specking with the neighbor in the next seat is not always an option, it can be very boring... All I can say, after enduring 5 trips like this, you get to used to it :) although everytime is a pain! Already tried 3 different airlines to do the Japan (Kansai) - Portugal (Lisbon) conection, and I have to admit the best is the last company with which I flew. The Dutch airline KLM has good points in everything, good food, frequent meals, good entertaiment with an interactive panel on your seat that allows to select from movies to tv series, documentaries and games, and somehow helps to spend time, and very kind treatment from the staff! grade 10

The other two Luftansa and Air France, if you can choose, between these 2, air france is without a dought the better one, with aceptable food, and interactive panel similar to the one in KLM. Have safe trip...

11 000 m of Altitude

Being in high places has been always of great fascination to me, this time flying KLM the Dutch airline company from Japan to Portugal, I got to see amazing landscape at 11 000m high above in the clouds. The sky was clear and the picture is quite nice, although during the flight there were some periods of heavy turbulence that made me wonder how fragile our live is, any given mistake/misfortune could lead to an accident and the outcome could be not the most desirable one.