Tuesday, March 24, 2009

March Madness

This month I´ve been away every weekend. The first it was the Ebro river delta with Valentina. We went down to Vinaroz and then up to Amposta and Deltebre and also Tortosa. The weather was a little cold and slightly rainy. On the way back we hit a small town called Miravet with an impressive castle. One way to enter the town is by crossing the river on a cable ferry. It has no motor but is drawn by the river current against the rudders. You drive right on and its 3 euros to get your vehicle across. We left town via the normal road.



The following two weekends I was in Margalef, climbing a little, trying not to overdo it as I have medial epicondylitis. Good sunny weekends with friends and lots of climbing pictures as I was not climbing much.



The following weekend I went to the Pyrenees. Gonzalo is taking a course in Benasque and a group from Valdepeñas came up to the snow. We attempted a 3,000 meter peak the first day wearing crampons the whole day but we didn´t summit (we left too late and ran out of light), but it was still a good time. I also checked out the Arán Valley staying in the town of Salardú and also the Boi area.

This weekend I stayed somewhat local for the first part of the weekend climbing an easy multipitch route in the hot sun Friday, and driving 30 minutes to Alcorisa where snow was falling Saturday night to see some drum sessions (groups getting ready for Holy Week). The weather took a drastic change to cold and rainy but I think in a couple of days we´ll have our spring weather back again. Sunday I went to a reformed presbyterian church in Zaragoza and then went and checked out the Moncayo mountians. On the way back to Alcañiz I detoured to Belchite, sleeping there, and seeing the civil war ruins in the morning. S

Now I am rushing to plan for Spring Break, I´ll be leaving on Friday heading for Galicia...

Saturday, March 14, 2009

When you can go hiking. . . . by Amy

The past few weeks I have been doing a lot of hiking and not so much climbing. Here´s some pics of where I´ve been minus the two trips to Despeñaperros which, both times, I forgot my camara. Maybe it´s a good thing cause last time I fell into the river by accident. :)
RIO MUNDO: This is part of the Sierra de Segura (see below) but is a popular place that is well know and many people go there. Not many people do what we did which was hike to the entrance of the cave. What it is a waterfall, or river that comes out of cave in the middle of big rock face. The river goes back tens of kilometers and supposedly they have never found the end (or beginning). Maybe that will be my next hiking destination ;)
-wild goat, looks like the ones we have Mom-
-up high above where the cave is-

-me looking at the waterfall-



-the cave-




-this is prana advertisement :) the waterfall and if you look carefully you can see where most people go below, many people don´t even know it´s a cave-

LA PEDRIZA: this is a mountain range that is above Madrid. Makes you want to go climbing with all the rock there is.









-cool rock formations-







-where we ate lunch-








we hiked up this: it´s called the Yelmo-










-here´s the Yelmo, do you see the finger that´s pointing up it?-









-wild animals-

























-we came from the very top-


SIERRA de SEGURA: This is located about three hours aways by car, it´s actually not that far away but it takes forever to get there cause the roads are really curvy and not very direct. It is to the southeast of Valdepeñas and is a huge park/mountain range. Phil equiped his first climbing route here. It has lots of trails and but this is not like a very visited park in Spain so most things are not marked very well. For example, Gabriel and I were planning on taking the trail that went to a massive cave but after about five minutes of walking it we had no idea where the trail had gone and couldn´t re-find it. The result was we took another trail that ended up going up high on the mountain range and circling around. Very beautiful.














-the view-














-we walked through alot of snow at the highest points, it was a hot day though-















-Gabriel up high over a resevoir-














-Look it how high up we are!-

-we encountered 3 waterfalls along the trail-














And that´s all folks! Until next time,














lots of love Amy