Friday, 27 April 2007

12 Haza de Lino, Alpujarra, Andalucia

Lynne & I walked 14 kilometers in the Alpujarra - the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. This circular walk is from the book of Alpujarran walks by Jeremy Rabjohns. It takes you from the bar in the small settlement of Haza de Lino up 200 - 300 metres through a forest of cork oak and onto a high point from where there are great views down to the med, and up to the snow capped sierra. Then we went down again through a very picturesque valley and up onto the road, from where we walked back to Haza. Distance:- 9 miles with the time taken at 3.75 hours. Going:- Regrettably it was a cloudy day with some rain and a cold wind up on the top. The views were not as good as we would have wished. The pictures were taken on an earlier occasion when I did this walk alone. Progress:- walked 142 - 358 to go.


The Sierra Nevada....


......highest peak is Mulhacen at 3749m or 11414ft, at which height the bio-climatic type is tundra, and the peaks are snow capped all year around. 50 km away, and at the other ecological extreme, is the Desierte de Tebernas, the only semi-desert in Europe. Therefore on a 50k walk you could potentially pass through all the bio-climatic zones of Europe. The variety of flora and fauna is as wide as the view above.


The View Towards the Med....


.......on a hazy day and looking into the sun. You can just see the white uprights of wind turbines on the ridge below, with the coastal plain in the background on the right hand side, and a mountain village bottom left hand side.

Cork Oak (quercus suber)...

...you can see the cut around the top of the trunk where it the bark was harvested a few years ago. Here the cork oak grows at an unusually high altitude (c.1400m). When the bark is stripped the trunks turn in colour to bright orange, and then weather to a red-oxide/purple hue as the bark layers begin to regenerate.

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