Picos de Europa: Not a Walk in the Park
The next morning I was off towards my next mountain destination, the Picos de Europa in the northwest of Spain. These mountains spring forth only a few miles off the northern coast of Spain and rise up to 2600 meters. The National Park comprising the tallest ranges straddles the borders of 3 provinces: Cantabria, Asturia, and Castilla y León.
It was a sunny morning and the highway westward was one of the prettiest I have seen yet, sandwiched as it was between the Atlantic and the green mountains called the Cordillera Cantabrica. Just before veering off to the white limestone of the Picos, I stopped for another dip in the ocean, my last for at least 10 days.
After passing a couple of touristy towns in the foothills, I parked the car at a visitors center a good distance up the slopes. My plan was to do a rather ambitions 3-day loop, catching some of the highlight sections of the park. However, the weather took a dramatic turn for the worse just a I arrived. It started to rain, and the wind began to blow so hard I was seriously afraid it would topple my parked car down the incline.
Undeterred, I donned my rain gear and started walking uphill, just as everyone else was making a dash for their vehicles. After half an hour I was completely alone, aside from the various farm animals grazing along the way. The rain was not much of an issue, but the wind only intensified as I climbed the thankfully gentle gradient. Caught in the bare valleys of the Picos (there are hardly any forests there to slow it down, even at low elevations), the wind gusted up to 90 km per hour, as I later found out.
I didn´t need any statistics to tell me that the weather conditions were rather serious. At times, I found it impossible to take a single step forward, clinging on to the nearest rock and waiting for the wind to let up. Some ascents were two steps forward and one step back, taking extreme care to anticipate the next gust by leaning into the wind at exactly the right angle. My pack rain cover wasn´t helping, since it wsa too big and acted as a sail no matter how much I tightened it.
Ascending to any peaks that day was out of the question, and, at times, I even wondered whether I would be able to reach my refugio for the night, a mere 2.5 hours away under normal conditions. I had my tent with me just in case, but didn´t relish the idea of setting it up on such a day. Finally, I reached the alpine hut, and listend from inside to the wind and rain beating down on the structure, whose windows looked ready to pop inward any second.
The refugio warden, a rough-looking chap who had taken to talking to himself out of solitude, warned that the next day promised to be even worse. I fell asleep, huddled in my sleeping bag because it was getting freezing cold even inside, wondering what to do next.
It was a sunny morning and the highway westward was one of the prettiest I have seen yet, sandwiched as it was between the Atlantic and the green mountains called the Cordillera Cantabrica. Just before veering off to the white limestone of the Picos, I stopped for another dip in the ocean, my last for at least 10 days.
After passing a couple of touristy towns in the foothills, I parked the car at a visitors center a good distance up the slopes. My plan was to do a rather ambitions 3-day loop, catching some of the highlight sections of the park. However, the weather took a dramatic turn for the worse just a I arrived. It started to rain, and the wind began to blow so hard I was seriously afraid it would topple my parked car down the incline.
Undeterred, I donned my rain gear and started walking uphill, just as everyone else was making a dash for their vehicles. After half an hour I was completely alone, aside from the various farm animals grazing along the way. The rain was not much of an issue, but the wind only intensified as I climbed the thankfully gentle gradient. Caught in the bare valleys of the Picos (there are hardly any forests there to slow it down, even at low elevations), the wind gusted up to 90 km per hour, as I later found out.
I didn´t need any statistics to tell me that the weather conditions were rather serious. At times, I found it impossible to take a single step forward, clinging on to the nearest rock and waiting for the wind to let up. Some ascents were two steps forward and one step back, taking extreme care to anticipate the next gust by leaning into the wind at exactly the right angle. My pack rain cover wasn´t helping, since it wsa too big and acted as a sail no matter how much I tightened it.
Ascending to any peaks that day was out of the question, and, at times, I even wondered whether I would be able to reach my refugio for the night, a mere 2.5 hours away under normal conditions. I had my tent with me just in case, but didn´t relish the idea of setting it up on such a day. Finally, I reached the alpine hut, and listend from inside to the wind and rain beating down on the structure, whose windows looked ready to pop inward any second.
The refugio warden, a rough-looking chap who had taken to talking to himself out of solitude, warned that the next day promised to be even worse. I fell asleep, huddled in my sleeping bag because it was getting freezing cold even inside, wondering what to do next.
posted by Dmitri Evseev at 1:08 PM
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