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We Take a Morning Walk in the Evening

19/09/2016 Leave a comment

We Put a New Twist on a Familiar Sierra Nevada Hiking Path

We usually walk in the morning. It’s cooler and the air is clearer. The pictures Mike published here a couple of weeks ago were made on this same walk, but in the morning. In the evening it’s different, but equally delightful. The color of the evening light is warmer and the later it gets the rays of the sun slant through the trees and across the hills at a low angle. We were surprised that, though it’s only half an hour’s drive up the hill from our house, and we walked for less than an hour and a half, when we came back to the bar at the bottom we felt we’d had a holiday.

Here are the pictures. (P.S. The last photo is of our house, my studio and the Gallinero from across the valley of the River Genil. The scene looked so serene as we were driving home that Mike stopped and shot the picture.).

 

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Categories: Sierra Nevada Walks Tags: , , , ,

A Morning Walk in Sierra Nevada’s Mid-Mountain

23/08/2016 Leave a comment

It’s late August so it’s hot. If you start out on a hike at nine by twelve or one you’ll wish you’d stayed home. But here in Granada the climate not only varies by latitude–the farther south you go the warmer it gets–but by altitude: the higher you go the cooler it gets. This is because Granada has Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that rises from some 700 meters of altitude–Granada’s marvelous tourist attraction, the Alhambra fortress and palace is actually built on one of the last spurs of Sierra Nevada–up to the 3,400 meters of Mulhacen, mainland Spain’s highest peak.

So, the other morning Mike and I jumped in the car at 8:00 a.m. and drove 20 minutes up the Sierra Nevada road to a place called “El Desvío” (“The Detour,” as it’s where the old road divides from the new one) at 1,800 meters of altitude. In one of the bars congregated there  we had breakfast–leche manchada con media tostada de aceite y tomate, milky coffee with half a toasted Vienna roll, virgin olive oil and grated tomato, and set off on foot along a gravel trail that leads to a remote convent five kilometers up the road. We didn’t make it to the convent but we enjoyed a delicious hour and a half hiking along the road. We took our dog, Cuca, with us. She also needs a workout.

During the whole time we only saw one car and a handful of hikers, a real luxury. We enjoyed immensely the gently rising and falling trail, the stunning mountain views and watching Cuca hunting little skink lizards. She never catches one. Best of all was the temperature, never going beyond23 or 24º. Here is a selection of the pictures Mike made on the walk.

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Maureen Booth, August 2016

Categories: Activities, Maureen Booth printmaker, Printmaking Granada, Sierra Nevada Walks Tags: , , ,