I came upon the idea of a trip to the Sierra Nevada when I was looking for a high mountain trip in Europe that I could do in early June and could be fitted into a week. The traverse of the 3000m summits of the Sierra Nevada matched this requirement perfectly, although as always, once acquainted with an area it becomes apparent that there is just so much potential for other trips.
Richard from (Spanish Highs Mountain Guides) sorted out transport for us and dropped us off at the end of a landrover track, above the village of Jerez on the north east side of the range. We quickly dressed for the mountains, packed the gas that Richard had supplied and set off with supplies for 5-6 days, to the Refugio Postero Alto. This should have taken only a couple of hours, but we got a bit confused with the network of paths and trails around the stream and the end of the spur we should have been following. There was a path with yellow and white paint flashes (which just seemed to end!) and various other paths alongside the stream. We walked in the general direction we wanted to go but it was becoming increasingly difficult along the stream path, and we had to cross several times. It was quite wearisome to be misplaced within the first hour and we eventually decided that we had better head uphill and onto the ridge to our right. Again there was evidence of paths, even a line of concrete marker posts but the paths still disappeared. It wasn ™t until we reached the crest of the ridge that we met the proper path to the refugio. Even on this, signs were misleading and there were red and white paint flashes at one point for yet another path. However, we reached the refugio without further incident although by this time it had been raining for a couple of hours and the mountains were shrouded in cloud.
We were quite surprised to find lots of cars at the refugio “ apparently you can drive there!! It was open so we reserved our space and settled down to an evening of recovery “ having been up travelling since 2am.
During the night the sky cleared and the weather was fantastic by the morning. The mountains were clear and we could see our route to Picon de Jerez, the first of the 3000m summits. From the refugio we followed the path up the Loma de Enmedio . Eventually a cairned route branched off to the right toward the streams of the Arroyo del Alhoi. This was a delightful path and probably one of the best that we followed during the traverse. The route continued into a high and impressive corrie and then onto a spur coming down from the Picon de Jerez. By this time it had clouded over considerably although by the time we reached the summit ridge the visibility was better. The final slopes to the ridge were steep and rocky, although there were only a couple of small sections of slightly unpleasant scree. John was feeling the effect of altitude, the heavy pack and probably general tiredness. On gaining the summit ridge we walked along the crest to the Punta del Juntillas and made a short detour to the summit of Cerro Pelao.
It was later than we ™d anticipated by this time, and the way ahead was fairly obscured by cloud. We decided to drop into the basin of the Laguna de Juntillas for our first camp. It was a pleasant spot on grass with streams of snow melt. It was very gloomy that evening but the sky cleared again during the night and it was a very cold start to the morning, lots of ice on the tent.
We made an early start and cramponed up perfect neve to the ridge at the summit of Tajos Negros de Cobatillas. Because of the late snowfall we had decided at the last minute to take crampons and we found them very useful on a couple of occasions. In the early morning the snow was very solid and made for fast and easy progress on what would have otherwise been scree slopes.
We continued along the ridge, mainly keeping to the snow or rock crest and took in all the summits until the Puntal del Goteron, just before the north face of Alcazaba. The ridge was more interesting than expected, parts of it not dissimilar to Skye. We kept to the crest as much as possible, descending to the west to by-pass some rock steps on the descent from the Pico del Cuervo. There was interesting route finding to the summit of Punta de Vacares to avoid the steep summit rocks on the north side and the snow which was now becoming very soft.
From Puntal del Goteron, we descended into the basin below the Tajas del Goteron (the band of cliffs across the North face of Alcazaba. Again we found a good place to camp on a grassy shelf before the stream plunged over a rock band . That evening we discussed our progress and decided that in the current conditions a traverse of all the 3000m summits was not feasible in the time available.
The following morning we descended the rock band, traversed the snow field on the flanks of Alcazdaba and made for the scree slope which would lead round the east ridge. It looked dreadful but I was pleasantly surprised to find a cairn and the route lead easily up the scree and traversed round the shoulder. We reached the small valley just before Laguna Hondera and decided to camp there and climb Alcazaba with light sacs. Again it was a lovely spot to camp beside the stream, with a cairned route leading straight from the camp site up the south east ridge of Alcazaba. This joins the east ridge near a prominent mushroom shaped rock which makes a very good landmark.
The ascent along the ridge was very enjoyable and the summit gave stunning views of the north face of Mulhacen. We made the small circuit around the ridge to the peaks overlooking the Siete Lagunas basin, before rejoining our route of ascent. This gave some bits of nice scrambling and airy summits.
The following day we walked round to Laguna Hondera and up the very well marked route on the scree slope to gain the east ridge of Mulhacen. This was probably the most well marked section of mountain we encountered on the whole traverse, but it is the highest peak. From the summit the views to the west opened up and we saw that there was a lot more snow in this part of the range. We descended the west flank and then proceeded along the Sierra Nevada road, which in places was still banked out with snow. The weather was becoming very cloudy and visibility poor, although we had glimpses of the peaks we didn ™t have time to climb “ something to come back for!! From the Veleta col we made the short detour to the summit before descending steep snow slopes into the basin of Lagunas de la Virgen. We then followed the line of the path, which was completely lost in the snow slopes to the ruined refugio Elorrieta on the col between the Virgen ridge and the Tajos Altos. The refugio looked very uninviting so we descended the snow basin to camp on a rock island near Laguna de Lanjaron. This was our first time not camping on grass but there was at least some running water where the snow bridges across the river had collapsed.
At about 11pm that night I was woken by the feeling of something pushing at the side of the tent near my head. I obviously made quite a lot of noise but that wasn ™t enough to deter the intruder. There was then a lot of movement at the end of the tent and I thought it was John moving his feet around. He denied this and when he looked near his feet he noticed that his very thick plastic bag containing the remainder of his hill food and a spare evening meal had gone. I couldn ™t understand how this could be the case until we examined the tent and realised that there was a 2 ™ rip across the groundsheet!! On examination of the tent near my head, there was another tear. So that didn ™t make for a very peaceful last night in mountain paradise!! We kept thinking it was coming back so eventually lay there with the torch on all night. I may have slept a couple of hours after about 4am. We had been told that foxes would be troublesome on the western section of the range, especially around the Veleta area. The last thing I expected was them to be so bold as to come and rip the tent apart “ and they were determined they were going to get that food. I have a lot of experience of bear behaviour, having climbed extensively in the High Sierra California, Alaska and the Canadian Rockies. I know how to deal with them and although I ™ve had a few close encounters I ™ve never had my tent invaded or any damage. The foxes of the Sierra Nevada are obviously very tenacious and it is necessary to find some means of storing food safely away from the tent, just as if it were bear country.
The next day we gathered up the wreckage from around the tent. There was no trace of John ™s hill food, lots of very expensive bars(!!), but they hadn ™t liked the dried tortellini!! Fortunately there was enough food left for the following day in my food bag which the fox had not come back for.
We had decided by this point that we wanted to get down to Lanjaron that afternoon and have a final day of the holiday relaxing and enjoying Spain. We thought the Tajos Altos ridge would take too long and we didn ™t want to have to spend another night out in fox country. An alternative was the route of the Verada Cortada, a path which follows a shelf and then is cut out of the rock, parallel to the ridge. John was not keen on this, thinking that snow would present problems. We decided to return via the ridge of Pico Tajo de los Machos, which made a pleasant and interesting descent until the lower end of the ridge when we cut down too early to an obvious track and ended up in the wrong network of zig-zags!! There were a couple of bridges across the river from where we ™d intended picking up the path down from the Cerro del Capallo but it wasn ™t possible to reach these. I wasn ™t paying much attention to the route finding at this point and on closer examination of the map after, it would have been much better to follow the ridge down for another couple of miles. Then we would have hit the right zig-zags which then lead down to the valley path into Lanjaron. It seems that getting out of and into civilization in the Sierra Nevada is the most difficult part!!
Thursday evening we enjoyed the company of Richard and Kiersten who found our fox encounter quite amusing. Over a couple of beers it makes a good story, but not very amusing at the time!! It was good to chill out in Lanjaron on Friday, enjoying good food and company.
Although this was a very short trip for me, it was fairly intense and gave a very me a very good idea of the potential of these mountains for future trips. I will definitely return, there are some superb 3000m peaks and ridges we just didn ™t have time for in the south western section. It is a very unspoilt range of mountains, particularly in the east where there are virtually no way markings and good route finding sense is essential. There is very little evidence of other people having travelled there, even around the obvious camping places. It you want a well marked long mountain traverse with lots of provisioned refuges then this is not the place to be, but if you want to experience wilderness and solitude, it is a mountain area that has been very much overlooked. I am working on a fox avoidance strategy for my next trip!!
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