Oct 2011 – Sierra Nevadas, South East Spain
Adie and I headed out on a rehab trip to make sure my knee was fixed and to see how much snow was about yet in the Sierras at this time of year. The answer is: enough to make the ridges tricky, and not enough to make them easy to walk over the tops of ;( Had a couple of crappy weather days but still a good bit of blue sky and sunshine, a couple of sub-zero nights out under canvas, and topped off with a proper blizzard night out. Made it up over 3000m, checked out some of the unusual SN mountain huts (and ruins of some of the older ones), gained a new appreciation for why the range is often compared to Scotland in terms of weather conditions, and made it out alive. Plus my knee did just fine.
-for which crampons had to be taken off briefly. made it up to 3150m and explored the awesome ruins of the elioretta hut before attempting to walk the craggy and rather snowy ridge which son became quite treacherous so we bailed down north and pitched up at about 2800m in a nicely sheltered spot. It was about 5?C in the tent but the precipitation in the night fell as snow and weighed the tent form this morning. The wind was strong, visibility low, and snow/hail intermittent, so we headed north out to the ski resort town of pradollano where we’re eating burgers, drinking beer and waiting for the only bus of the day down to granada at 5pm.
