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| Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares |
On our last day of the Easter holidays we decided to hike a well known trail called the YELMO (English translation; the helmet). Located on the Guadarrama Mountain Range in the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, Madrid. T he YELMO is the highest peak of La Pedriza mountain. The park is particularly known for all of its unusual rock formations, which also have funky names!
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| Whoa - what a view! |
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| Hiking up to the right |
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| Close up of a wild poppy |
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| Let's go climbing! |
With the recent daylight savings change it was quite dark and a tad chilly when we woke but we packed our typical Spanish potato sandwiches and a few bottles of water and then boarded the bus at Plaza de Castilla. Just a short 45minute trip took us to the small town of Manzanares El Real where we could walk up to the start of the trail. During all our hikes so far we have gotten a bit lost...... so being the smart cookies that we are, we spent a lot of time the evening before vigorously trying to translate the Spanish instructions on how to find the path and trail head. Today we must have gotten lucky and found the trail relatively easy! Relatively.....
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| View of the lake Embalse de Santillana |
The hike started off with stunning views of the melting snow capped mountains, the green pine forest and amazing rock formations. Because today isn't an official public holiday in Spain the trail was very quiet and we walked for a couple of hours before seeing other hikers.
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| Happy Hikers! |
Our chosen trail was graded 'moderate' but actually fairly intense, up and up, and once we got going there wasn't much shade from the hot sun!
One of the most exciting parts was coming across a family of wild Spanish Ibex mountain goats.
They seemed happy to pose for us! We also spotted a Spanish Imperial eagle and black vultures as well as a small rabbit on the mountainside enjoying the spring weather.
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| Ibex goat family |
The hardest part of the trail was definitely the down hill and we both ended up taking a tumble on the loose gravel.
After our 'climb' we relaxed with a cold yeasty beverage before exploring the super awesome castle that Manzanares El Real has: 'Castillo de los Mendoza' built in 1475. But our legs were pretty buggered!
Tot siens,
John and Kara
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| 'Castillo de los Mendoza' |
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| Hello Mr Ibex! |
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