Inspirations for your next Sierra Nevada mountain adventure!

Report from our guide, Jens Foell as he ascends the highest mountain in mainland Spain in poor weather conditions.

The weather forecast was looking pretty bad. Rain, rain, and yet more rain for the whole week. But Xavier Wang had come all the way from Singapore to climb Mulhacen, at 3482m the highest peak in mainland Spain. So we set off regardless, knowing we were in for a battle with the elements, and walked up to the Refugio Poqueira along the Acequia Alta.

And we were lucky that first day, the clouds kept lifting, we had great views of the Sierra Nevada and occasionally we even got to see the sun. But crossing the little side streams feeding the acequia required some effort as days of rain meant lots of water everywhere. We later heard that we had made the right choice by coming this way though. The main path through the Poqueira gorge was flooded in many places. Even some of the bridges were fully under water that day, as we later found out from a pair of Swiss pensioners, the only people, apart from us, who had made it up to the hut in days.

Singapore is 7 hours ahead of Spain. That meant that Xavier’s inner clock hadn’t quite adapted to our time yet. He managed to fall asleep at 8pm and catch a good night’s sleep. That was just as well as he really needed all his strength the next day. Now the weather forecast was spot on: It was wet, visibility was zero, and higher up we encountered strong, wet wind.

Conditions like that can change the normally straightforward ascent of Mulhacen into a tough climb. And I doubt that anyone without local knowledge could even have found their way up with no visibility and all the paths up the Rio Mulhacen were flooded.

Once we had a little rest at the Caldera shelter at just over 3000m (which was very wet inside as the Southern winds had blown the door open), the wind picked up in earnest, pushing the wet air through our gore tex layers. So during the steepest part of the climb we got very quickly soaking wet throughout.

The snowline had retreated up to above 3200m, so we only had to wear crampons for the last half hour. But the summit itself was covered in thick ice so one should certainly never go without at this time of year. We were freezing cold and wet and couldn’t see a thing, but we made the summit in the end.

A great achievement for someone who had left the heat and humidity of Singapore only 2 days earlier!

After returning to the Hut we were joined by a third traveler on the way down. There is a beautiful, white and very fluffy mountain cat called Blanca living at the Poqueira hut. Don’t ask me where she’d met daddy, but Blanca had had kittens and two of them needed a new home. So one of them made the wet walk down the mountain rolled up inside the pocket of my soft shell jacket and now has a new home down in the Alpujarras!

Spanish Highs have now made over 260 ascents of Mulhacén in all weathers, in all seasons. Local experience counts! Contact them if you want to climb the highest mountain in mainland Spain