The Great Outdoors Spring 2019

As the route swings south-west to follow the spine of the

range, journeying between camps at the head of rivers now

becomes the pattern for the remainder of the traverse

inest of the Sierra Nevadan hree Peaks,

or Tres P i co s – Alcazaba – before what

can best be described as an ‘exploratory’

descent to our next camp. hat evening,

cannons ire in the distance, and lightning

bounces around obliquely on the rocks

above us in a way that suggests other

wandering hill vagrants are lost in the

knee-bothering cubist maze we descended

into a few hours earlier. It is all a trick of the

night. We see no-one at all for the irst four

days of Los Tres Miles.

Richard told us about the Paso de las

Zetas, a shepherd trod which handrails

the massive eastern headwall of Alcazaba,

before allowing passage onto its broad

south slopes, and it sounded so perfect that

we remain wedded to the idea, despite the

continuing dreich. We scratch around for

the improbable, elevated terrace for the

whole of the following morning in a

soupy drizzle.

Our eventual success is short-lived.

hrough the murk, it seems to lead to...

nothing much at all. Just a steep, exposed

bank of loose scree. We contour, one step

forward, three down. Hell Hiking. hinking

I can see a lighter patch in the headwall to

our right, I drop my pack and inally ind

the chink in Alcazaba’s armour we are

looking for. We grind up and over the top in

truly Scottish conditions and spend a night

among cowpats at a saturated col.

he dynamic of through hiking means

decisions are made for the whole, not the

part. You push on when you might prefer

[above] Last light at camp, after the trek from Mulhacen [above right] Posing young Ibex

66 The Great Outdoors Spring 2019