el Escorial Circuit Walk

Spain, el Escorial Circuit Walk (10/26)

Today was our first walk in the Sierra de Guadarrama - mountains north of Madrid.

Yesterday we met with our local representative to get all our trek materials and get an overview of the walks we'll be doing. These will be a bit of a challenge as some of them are pretty long (for us).

Breakfast at our hotel is not served until 9AM so we had to scrounge up some food to eat earlier in the morning. This would enable us to get a reasonably early start. At 8:30 we were out the door and on our way. It was cold! My hands got very cold and didn't warm up until we'd walked 4km or so and started uphill.

Our route took us first to 'Silla de Felipe II', an overlook used by the Spanish king Felipe II to view the building progress of the monastery. There's even a throne carved into the rock for Felipe to sit while viewing, I assume. This spot provided a beautiful view back towards el Escorial and the Monastery.

From here it was pretty steady uphill walking to Collado Entrecabezas pass, a col between two hills/mountains. We took a side trip from here, an out and back to the top of Machota Baja hill. Wow! What a summit. Amazing views, very cool rocks all around, so with giant potholes filled with water from recent rains, and all the kind of granite rock that both Janet and I love.

Then back to Collado Entrecabezas where we saw a group of young kids, maybe 8 years old, that had come down from Madrid to do the hike. They were having a great time. Now it was trudge up the steep first part of the trail to Machota Alta hill and a sighting of our first vacas (cows). By this time the crowd of hikers had greatly diminished as most people choose to ascend Machota Baja.

At the summit we were all alone and instead of turning around and returning the way we had ascended, we continued over the summit and down the other side, back toward el Escorial. This walking was much more rugged with little or no trail, more vacas, and just the notes from our trip representative to guide us. They were great and brought us back to the starting point of our loop.

From here it was just a few kilometers back to town, our hotel, and food.

Tomorrow we tackle a more ambitious undertaking: a 20km trek with a good deal of elevation gain. But, we should be rewarded with outstanding views and enormous self-satisfaction.

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