A long weekend in the Jura

We took advantage of the long weekend and nice weather to do some hiking along the Jurahöhenweg.

Day 1: St. Imier -> Jurahaus (SAC Biel)
St. Imier (~1230m, 9:50), Col du Chasseral (1548m), Chasseral (1607m, 1:00), Jurahaus (1256m, 5:00)

walking through fields of wild daffodils

Day 2: Jurahaus (SAC Biel) -> Unterer Grenchenberg
Jurahaus (1256m, 8:45), Frinvillier (532m, 11:20), Plagne (862m, 1:00), [peak between Mgne de Remont and Wäsmeli] (1192m), Wäsmeli (1102m), Stierenberg (1075m), Unterer Grenchenberg (1295m, 3:45)

crossing the "Röstigraben"

Day 3: Unterer Grenchenberg -> Welschenrohr
Unterer Grenchenberg (1295m, 9:15), Oberer Grenchenberg (1348m), Stallflue (1409m), Althüsli (1317m), Hasenmatt (1445m), Hinterer Weissenstein (1226m), Weissenstein (1284m, 1:45), Röti (1395m), Balmfluechopfli (1290m), Balmberg (1078m), Welschenrohr (680m, 3:50)

Wandflue

Andalucia hiking day 4: Capileira->Lanjaron

In order to offset the previous short day, this was a long one.

We rouse the service in the hotel restaurant at 8:30, have a blah breakfast and are on our way by 9:15. We start they day by repeating the path back to Bubion.

While figuring out the best way out of town towards Pampaneira, we notice a large group (>15) of Dutch tourists behind us on the road (at times it seemed like half of Holland was in Andalucia), so we speed up a bit to get out of town. Our "best way" out of town isn't as "best" as theirs, so they end up right behind us. We stop to let them pass and get in front of us in order to have some quiet. Just before Pampaneira (1055m) we pass the Dutch at somewhat steep bit of hill, which they are having trouble negotiating. Andrea, quietly: "The Dutch seeing a mountain is like Californians seeing snow."

Pampaneira itself is super touristy and rapidly filling up, so we escape as quickly as possible by heading down to the canyon bottom (~900m). We cross a bridge and then climb up, up to the ridge on the other side (1050m). After a bit more walking we have a quick break with a view over the valley and Carataunas. From there it's around the corner to Soportujar (975m, 1:00), which is pleasantly non-touristy after the madness of the last few towns.

Leaving Soportujar we head around into another canyon and have lunch with the nice bread from day 3 at the edge of the national park. Down a bit more and we cross the impressive Dique (dam) 24 before heading into Canar (1040m, 3:00), another nice little town with lots of flowers. From there it's out and into another canyon (with another +/- 100m climb that's not indicated on the official height profile... irritating!). As we're almost to the bottom we notice a very large herd of goats (and their goatherd) heading along the path on the other side. Luckily they continue on past the path to the bottom of the canyon and finish passing the junction with our trial a couple minutes before we get there. whew! We still have to climb out of the canyon on a path strewn with fresh goat dung. ew!

After a bit more walking up top, we pass the GR142 (heading down to Orgiva) and then head down, down, down, into Lanjuron on cobbled paths and concrete roads and some dirt. This bit is not as well signed as the rest of the walk has been. We hit the edge of Lanjaron (660m) at 5:00 and then walk most of the way through town to find our hotel. We've splurged on a three star hotel for the night and somehow end up in the Alhambra suite. whoo hoo! Probably the woman at the desk wanted to get our sweaty selves out of the lobby as quickly as possible, so she grabbed the first key that came to hand. :-)

There's some fun later as we try, unsuccessfully, to find the bus stop for the next day's trip back to Malaga and then a quasi-death march around town looking for a place to have dinner. Luckily the dinner search meets with more success than the bus-stop search and we end up having quite a nice meal of assorted raciones.

Bubion

Andalucia hiking day 3: Mecina->Capileira

This was a pretty short day.

We start with a better-than-usual breakfast (because of the good bread and home-made orange marmelade at l'Atelier). After saying goodbye to Jean Claude and picking up an extra loaf of the bread (to have something better than a stale Spanish baguette with our lunch!), we head up and out of town to Pitres (1245m).

After walking through Pitres it is only a few minutes up to Capilerilla (1305m), a very teeny town (as the name indicates). There we see (or at least notice) our first real example of the streets covered by porches that are typical in the region. Out of town and up through orchards to a ridge topped with rocks (~1600m) that have a great view up the valley over the towns of Bubion and Capileira. Here we encounter our first real quantities of tourists. Guess there must be day trips suggested up to this point from Bubion and deliveries of people by the busload because there are hordes streaming up the path. We enjoy a couple of minutes of solitude and then head down the path to Bubion (1299m).

After fighting our way through the crowds in Bubion, we move on to Capileira (1432m), which is also crowded but not quite so badly. After a lunch break and nap, Greg's stomach is a mess, so he lazes around the rest of the afternoon while Andrea wanders through town some more.

After a pretty sad meal in the hotel restaurant (it was already paid for), we head off to bed.

Flowers in Capileira

Andalucia hiking day 2: Trevelez -> Mecina

After heading back into Trevelez to find breakfast (the campground restaurant wasn't going to open until 9:00 or something ridiculous like that), we spent longer than planned finding a place to pick up lunch stuff.

We left town at 9:30 and headed up to the ridge (~1800m) along a path that was mainly through pine and grass. Quite green, not so Coe anymore. We did a nice little -200m/+200m thing across a canyon that wasn't indicated on the official height profile for the hike. This wasn't particularly strenuous, and it was clear on the topo map, but it is kind of irritating to be expecting a level hike and get a height change that large. Along the way we spent some time on a dirt road where we encountered a group of younger cows who were clearly not particularly used to hikers. We ended up "chasing" them along the road for a while until the path forked off to the side.

After about 4 hours (including a break for lunch) we hit the first white village of the day: Busquistar (1156m). We wander around town for a bit and then head off along the GR-142 to Ferreirola. The terrain is now completely different: exposed rock, steep drops, etc. We round a corner and see five new white villages all at once. Five! (Ferreirola, Fondales, Mecinilla, Mecina, Pitres). We continue along to Ferreirola (1005m) and then to Mecina (~1000m, 4:00). After dropping our bags off at the hostal/restaurant L'Atelier, we wander around until 5:30 then head back to our very nice flat where we cleanup and rest a bit before dinner.

Dinner is excellent. Greg was a bit worried after seeing the number of ersatz meat dishes on the list of starters when we checked in ("oh no, it's one of those vegetarian restaurants"); but the full menu, particularly the daily specials, aren't so self conscious. Just nicely done vegetarian food. After all the meat of the previous days, it's really nice to eat a good quantity of vegetables.

Looking back to Busquistar

Andalucia hiking day 1: Near Cadiar -> Trevelez

Got a late start (9:30) thanks to breakfast starting at 8:30 -- not our fault for once. Following directions from some horseback riders at the hotel, we skipped heading back into Cadiar to pick up the GR-7 directly and took the direct route of just heading downhill to the river (~800m). After wandering around for a bit searching for where the GR-7 crosses the river, we gave up and crossed the river on a log (Greg's favorite activity). Immediately thereafter we found the trail.

After going uphill for a bit we hit our first white village of the trip: Lobras (939m). After a short break and drink at the fountain (pretty much every town has a fountain, so we don't have to carry a huge amount of water with us, which is a tremendous boon), we head through town, down a bit, then up to the the next village: Timar (1070m). Another break at another fountain, then up again and over a really nice crest with cool rock formations until Juviles sneaks up on us (1255m, 1:00).

Juviles is a bit bigger than either Lobras and Timar and is distinguished by its huge new ham-drying facility. We wander around town for a bit trying to find the supermarket to pick up some stuff for lunch, but eventually give up and have lunch at a cafe/bar/restaurant run by a Dutch expat. After a leisurely lunch break we start our at 2:30 for the day's endpoint: Trevelez.

We head up, up, up from Juviles through some scrub to the ridge (~1800m) and then down through a pine and oak forest to town. Trevelez (1476m) was visible for a while and kept getting closer through the afternoon. We walk through town past more ham-drying places than I thought could ever exist in one place, then out of town along the road for about a km to the place we're staying for the night (6:10). Rather than head back into town (and then return) along the dark and fairly busy road, we opt to have dinner in the campground restaurant. The meal is nothing to write home about.

Some themes from our not particularly strenous day:

• Smells: this was the best smelling hike. We were heading through rosemary and thyme and pine and lavender and flowers of every description. There were scrub flowers that had a light cinnamon scent and some flowering bushes with a cocoa butter smell. Amazing.
• Flowers of many shapes and sizes. Not as many colors: the majority were yellow but we did see some purples, reds, and blues. Even some green.
• Aside from being a bit hazy the weather was quite nice. It was warm but not too hot, with low humidity and frequent cooling breezes.
• The parts of the day where we were climbing through scrub really reminded both of us of Henry Coe.
• Wow was it great to be out hiking again and to know that there are more days to come.