The Great Outdoors Spring 2019

SIERRA NEVADA

TREKKING THE 3,000M PEAKS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA

Los Tres Miles is usually undertaken between May-September, as a ive- to seven-day trek.

Transport: Regular services to Malaga

from Ryanair and the other usual

suspects, from London, Manchester and

Edinburgh. From there, hire car is probably the

cheapest option to get into the Alpujarra

foothills. It’s an A-B traverse – arrange

transfers locally or through the guiding

company Spanish Highs (see right).

Where to stay: Lanjaron is a good base,

with plenty of local hotels to choose from

and supermarkets to stock up on perishables

before you leave. The local food and wine is

great.

How hard? In summer conditions, Los

Tres Miles is a high alpine trek. We found

the full Integrale to be physically strenuous

and sometimes vertiginous, but not technically

dificult – scrambling sits at around Grade 1.

It’s not the Alps; paths can be faint or

non-existent and there’s almost no signage.

Mountain huts are more like bothies, so you

need to carry all your food.

Guides and guidebooks: Spanish Highs

(spanishhighs.co.uk ) is the local,

English-speaking guiding company who know

the area intimately. Richard Hartley and his

partner Kiersten have lived in the Sierra Nevada

since 2003, and run guided traverses of Los Tres

Miles, employing local Spanish, English and

German speaking guides.

We used Richard’s Cicerone guidebook,

Walking and Trekking in the Sierra Nevada, which

covers the seven-day ‘Integrale’ as well as the

shorter, ive-day route from Trevelez.

Mapping: The map to get is the 1:40,000

Sierra Nevada Parque National by

Editorial Penibetica, which covers the entire

range (double sided). The level of detail is fairly

good, but the paper it’s printed on will not

survive your trip intact!

mapsworldwide.com/maps-charts-

atlases-c1811/walking-hiking-maps-c1814/

sierra-nevada-national-park-west-la-alpujarra-

marquesado-del-zenete-map-p15590

anything but. I’ve come to love the ebb
and low of these journeys, and of course it
makes the changes of fortune, when they
come, all the more welcome. he following
morning I sit and eat my porridge while
Mick doses in his tent. Sun – yes, sun – sotly
pulses, slowly over the back of Alcazaba,
a few inches at a time towards the gear laid
out to dry... before enveloping our shelters,
surrounded by riverlets, as small orange-
breasted Rock hrushes dart about from
rock to rock.

The Great Outdoors Spring 2019 67