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Autumn and Unfound Paths
THAT feeling has returned – the yearning that has its roots in the depths of the stomach and rises in a flood of warmth and expectation. All I did was raise my eyes towards the hills and behold streams...
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Chasing the Storm
I RISE at 6am because the thought of wandering through olive groves by the light of a headlamp and climbing mountains as the sun floods the sky appeals to me. But as I’m getting dressed, silent flashes...
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Happy Valleys
THROUGH a settling of plaster dust I snatch glimpses of snow-capped mountains. Above a hammering of nails I hear gusting wind in treetops and the cry of a bird. And when the wind sweeps away the sharp...
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Close Encounter with Wild Boar
THE sun hasn’t yet risen above the eastern Alpujarras. The air is cool and fresh on the slopes of Sierra de Lujar. I lock the van and clump off up a track that leads, eventually and hopefully, to a...
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The High and Mighty Mines of Lújar
A hard slog to the ancient mines on Sierra de Lújar, in southern Spain . . . Continue reading →
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In the Valley of the Toril
PATHS. They begin at our door and run through our lives. They rise and buckle and lead us to unknown places. They appear in all guises: woodland paths; coastal paths; moorland paths; paths of...
View ArticleStranger in Paradise
A STRANGER emerges from the dawn shadows and threads his way through banks of oleander and olive trees towards the hidden settlement of El Morreon. The sun colours the Sierra Nevada and surrounding...
View ArticleOf Mice, Men, Mountains and Motors
AS the celebrated Scottish poet Rabbie Burns scribbled in the year 1785: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley/an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy.” How true. In...
View ArticleRivers and Rocks, Tracks and Tunnels
DAWN in a river valley. Ink-blue shadows beneath tall mountains. A chill in air that is perfectly still. Smell of piny trees and the sound of rushing water. Pin-pricks of red lights as a truck crosses...
View ArticleAn Uneasy Night on Cerro de la Salchicha
SPENDING a night on the summit of a mountain, watching the sun sink into a splash of gold and the constellations revolve in blue-black emptiness, does have a romance and a sense of adventure about it....
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Lucero ??? Where Old Hatreds Linger
LUCERO is a prominent pyramid of baked rock that looks ten times more a mountain than nearly everything twice, three times and four times its size. The approaches from the south are long and incredibly...
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And Finally, Lujar . . . Finally
McEff climbs Sierra de Lujar. It's his fourth attempt . . . Continue reading →
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In the Realms of Glory on Cerro del Trevenque
CERRO del Trevenque is a dwarf among giants. It does not feature largely in the history of mountaineering. It probably doesn???t even warrant a footnote. But it is a mountain gem that shines like a...
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Climbing Cielo ??? as Swallows Come Back to Capistrano
A hot and dusty walk in the mountains of Andalucia . . . Continue reading →
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Walking up the Camino and Down Again
NOVEMBER in the Sierra Nevada. This camino runs from the rio Guadalfeo to Orgiva. It???s a back lane from a river to the centre of a small town. It is steep and long. Cars can be a problem. Goats can …...
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The Sierra Nevada: Two Peaks, Two Countries
SPAIN gets under your skin and fingernails. It dries your eyes and your mouth. You can feel it in your hair and on your brow when your boots kick the dust of its white mountain tracks. You smell its...
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Paths, Goats ??? and Huenes to Pico de la Carne
THE joy of paths. There are indistinct paths that fade and confound; paths choked with nettles and brambles; malevolent paths that lead through mud and bogland; and paths that twist in the wrong...
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Plodding over Pinnel ??? In the Rio Guadalfeo
THE Rio Guadalfeo flows from the Sierra Nevada mountains through steep-sided valleys to the Mediterranean at Salobre??a. I???ve gazed down upon its course from the winding mountain road to Orgiva many...
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Untold Stories of High Haciendas
THE mountains are full of places where people lived, raised families and died. Their children and their children???s children have moved on. All that remains are stones and walls and the imagined...
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Coniston Old Man ??? Backwards and Forwards
WHEN I was a teenager I made a pledge to climb Coniston Old Man at least once every year because it was the first mountain I climbed and it was special. I also grew up within sight of its familiar …...
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