European
Mountains, Spain |
El Fuerte (1004m) & Rábita de Torrox (697m), |
To the main El Fuerte/Rábita de Torrox page (maps, pictures, other trip reports) Sunnmøre - Sogndal - Hov - Oslo - Malaga - Frigiliana, Mar 30 - Apr 1 2012
Our Snail-house suite at Hotel Los Caracoles
The original plan for Easter 2012 was to go skiing in Sierra Nevadas and ascend Mulhacén (3479m)- the highest mountain in continental Spain. But because of an injury, Anne and me had to change our plans in the very last minute (not literally -the very last minute-, but you know what I mean...), and we ended up with a booking at Hotel Los Caracoles, near the village Frigiliana near the Spanish south coast - also known as Costa del Sol. It wasn't hard to shift our mindset from skis to boots and we looked forward to visit the Sierras de Tejeda range. We took the 06:00am flight from Oslo to Malaga (which meant we had to leave our temporary base-camp at Hov 2am in the morning...) The flight took 4 hours, and during the flight my life-long (yet periodic) back problem decided to kick in for full, and I arrived Malaga in a rather bad shape and with a splitting headache. Things did certainly not improve by having to wait for more than 1,5 hours at the Avis rental car office. The queue was growing into an endless state, and we were in the lucky category. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive Avis this level of customer service. But eventually, we could leave the airport with a brand new BMW - at least one step up from the category we had reserved a car from... Driving this kind of car was a new experience for me. I tested the gas pedal, and in the first second nothing happened (Diesel). In the very next, Anne was in the back seat. Well, kind of. In any case, there was a lot more horse power than I'm used to and I had to come up with a sustainable way of driving this car... After 76,9km, we arrived at Hotel Los Caracoles, and there was a problem with the reservation. No one at the hotel spoke English, and even if Anne practice decent Spanish, I don't know where we would have been without Google Translate. It all turned out well in the end, and the snail-suites turned out to be quite interesting... It was nice to trade Norwegian rain and snow for Spanish sunshine, but given my bad state I went straight into hibernation, hoping that the headache would eventually cease. Anne took a trip to the nearby town Frigiliana to see what the neighborhood had to offer. Meanwhile, I spent a few hours sleeping on the floor on rocks (yes, rocks) which is an excellent way of massaging aching muscles. Later in the evening I was able to take a short walk, and we walked up to Puerta Verde de Torrox - a 5 minute walk to something that turned out to be a bona fide mountain top with a primary factor of 100 meters! Across the valley - just above Frigiliana - we saw a proud mountain top named El Fuerte (The Strong One), and if I was able to resume to human state during the night, we would go there the very next day. My attempt of having dinner at the Caracoles restaurant failed miserably, and I returned to our snail-house suite with a steak doggy-bag. I felt a bit foolish, but with this kind of headache, I could swallow any kind of embarrassment. Easily!
Puerta Verde de Torrox
El Fuerte - Apr 2 2012I woke up the next morning, sound as a pound, fine as a dime, good as wood, etc.. (you get the point) and El Fuerte was definitely on the agenda. After breakfast, we studied Google Earth and had fairly good control of the route before heading towards Frigiliana.
At the El Fuerte trailhead, we met an emigrated Belgian who showed us around in his fine orchard. Afterwards, we continued up the ridge along a well-worn path. We left the orchard 10:50am and reached point 978m 12:07pm. This is where most hikers turn around, even if it's not the high point. El Fuerte summit (1004m) is located 0,36km to the northeast, and we continued towards the summit after a short stay.
The route to the high point was clearly off-trail, even if there was a vague, vague path and odd cairns here and there. We reached the top 12:27pm and had a most excellent view, even if the clouds found their grip on the higher mountains to the north. Our little favorite wolf Loke took a spin around the summit and it was fun to watch...
A flying wolf on El Fuerte
We returned to the trailhead 1:26pm, drove down to the sea and then up to Cómpeta (via Torrox) for lunch. We had some high hopes about obtaining hiking maps here, but because of the siesta, we didn't. Instead we drove back down and decided to hike Rábita de Torrox instead.
Rábita de Torrox
We headed out from our trailhead by the local restaurant 3:45pm and reached the top 4:27pm. It was a short hike, but it was definitely a proper mountain top - with good views! At 4:56pm, we were back to the starting point and it was time to call it a day. We had bigger plans for tomorrow. We weren't exactly sure what tomorrow would bring, but we would go a higher mountain. For sure!
View from Rábita de Torrox
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The pictures were taken with a Canon EOS 550D + Canon EF-S 17-85mm IS USM F 4-5.6
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Hotel Los Caracoles - Apr 1 2012
Puerta Verde de Torrox - Apr 1 2012
El Fuerte point 978m - Apr 2 2012
Wide-angle view from El Fuerte point 978m
To the high point (1004m)
Wide-angle view from El Fuerte summit
Descent
Rábita de Torrox, Apr 2 2012
Wide-angle view from Rábita de Torrox, Apr 2 2012
Descent
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