This is their report.
All photos by Richard Jones and/or John O'Connor
"After our three day ski touring adventure our plan was to have three days scrambling around Granada ...........
Day One Sat 1 Dec We drove from Spanish Highs base in Lanjaron to Villanueva del Rosario about 2 ½ hours. Had a coffee with the locals in the town and asked for directions to El Chamizo (1,641 metres),the highest peak in the area. Just outside of the town we took a road marked for Tormenta en Hondonero and drove to its end parking at a viewing area . There was no view as there was considerable cloud down. However we did see the lower buttresses of El Chamizo reflected partly through the cloud sparkling in a thick coat of frost. There was to be no ascent up any buttress from this the north side. Our route was to lie up a track on the north east of the mountain to a col from where we were able to scramble up the frost covered limestone which was not slippery once the frost was kicked off to the Eastern peak of El Chamizo. From here we walked scrambled and climbed for about 1k to reach the main summit at 1641. We retreated back the same way. The mountain was in two distinct climate zones while we were there about 5 hours . North sub zero frost South no frost with it haven been burnt off in the early morning sun.
Some great scrambling is found in the Sierra de Huetor
Day Two 2 Dec We drove for 1 ¼ hour from Lanjaron to the village of Cogolios Vega just north east of Granada. We drove straight through the village past the “Institute” on to a dirt road to point 37:19:21:78N 3:30:59:04W to a viewing area at 1742m. As we drove up this road we observed a long ridge with about 5 distinct high points on our left its about 2k in length. For the next 5 hours we scrambled our way along it and did some rock climbing on some of its southern side. The northern side slopes gently away so we were able to walk our way back to our starting point first on the northern side over a col midway to the south side to a track and back to the viewing area.
Sierra Arana ridge
Day Three 3 Dec Back again to the village of Cogollos Vega this time turning right just outside the town up a dirt track through olive groves we were heading for Peñón de la Mata a favourate climbing place of Spanish Highs. The Northern Face was frozen so this was out for climbing. So we picked out a line to go rock climbing on the south west corner. Here we got two good pitches and then on to some nice ridge scrambling reaching the top after about 3 hours. After our lunch on top and viewing the snow covered Sierra Nevada we returned to our car by going down steep ground to the north."
Spanish Highs run scrambling tours in Andalucia throughout the year. Contact them to book a guided adventure!
On the Sierra Arana ridge
Some great harder stuff too!
The ridge from the eastern end