Senda Herreros

Spain, Senda Herreros (10/28)

Well, this was a day that challenged our navigational skills. The walk we wanted to do was a traverse of Siete Picos (Seven Peaks), but we lost the route on our way and ended up backtracking.

The full story: The initial approach was along a stream and through open pine forest. At about 7km into the walk the trail (Senda Herreros) petered out and it became necessary to follow it using occasional blazes and cairns around a cirque and up to the ridge where the traverse would begin. At first this was through heavy brush, then later through open forest that skirted the base of rocky cliffs of Siete Picos.

Needless to say, we lost the trail fairly early on and spent a good deal of time trying to locate it using the GPS track that our local representative had so kindly provided. Eventually we worked our way up to the ridge crest at about 9km into the walk. We sat in the shade, ate some lunch, and discussed out options.

We were near some blazes and cairns that marked another route up the ridge and by consulting the GPS track it was clear that we could re-join our original route, which is what we did.

At that point we decided that we should return to our starting point rather than completing the traverse. And that is what we did, following the blazes and cairns in reverse back to our starting point. It was easier on the return as we were in open forest most of the time and the visual markers were much more obvious. A couple times we had to cast about to find markers and ensure that we were on route.

When we finally rejoined the main trail it was clear why we got off track initially: it was totally in-obvious where the trail branched off, just a bunch of roots and brush. I made like a good citizen and built a large cairn right at that junction.

Our hotel hosts had kindly driven us to the start in the morning and a man who was finishing his walk provided us with a ride back to town when we finished. Spanish hospitality!

Even though this occupied a lot of our attention there were many things about the walk that we really liked.

The forest and landscape were very reminiscent of the Sierra Nevada, which we love. Recent rains have resulted in a crop of mushrooms sprouting, some very colorful (and probably poisonous). The trail is named after Enrique Herreros who first pioneered the route and was a poet, humorist, artist, film maker, and mountaineer. Near the beginning (and end) of our walk we traveled on a section of cobbled road that was built by the Romans and passed by 2 arched bridges that they built. We noticed quite a contrast between the remains of a modern asphalt road and the 2000 year old Roman road.

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