La Padiorna, 2319m March, 17th 2012

After a sunny week, weather was going to be bad in the weekend. My plans were doomed to failure. Personally, I though weather was going to give us a chance untill midday on Saturday. Now, with just 2 off- days I cannot wait for the perfect weather conditions otherwise I wouldnt do anything most of the times.

We took the risk and went to Fuente De. It´s really close from Torrelavega. It was strange as I am used to spend a lot of gas when I went there. I did not only spend less time going there than Aviles-San Isidro but I also spent less gas.

There we went onto Canal de San Luis. It was cloudy, but not foggy at our height.

Some skiers going up towards La Colladina de las Nieves.

As we went higher the base part of the clouds reached some summits as the one we were going. It was pretty windy, so clouds moved fast.

There were also around 5cm of recent snow from 2100m fallen that night.

Contrary to what did other skiers we went on. There were just 100m left to the summit from the coll.

When we got the summit on foot, because the snow ended 10-15m below the summit, the weather gave us the best moment of the day and the sky cleared up (although there were clouds around)....

Sun even shone, lucky us! The beatiful first slope towards the coll with firm snow and 5cm of new snow where the wind hadnt blown them away...jaja

The second part was the best one in terms of recent snow. Wind had acumulated it in that face.

Getting closer to the end.

We had to put the track skins again to go back to El Cable. Blue sky in Liebana valley thank to the mountains which work as barriers against clouds.

By the time we took the cableway, it started snowing a bit. Then, we left Fuente De raining.

Basically, we couldnt have made the most of the day. We standed a slim possibility of skiing on Saturday with good weather conditions, and we finally had it.

II - Horcada de Santa Maria, 2350m 10,11-Abril-2010 (Picos de Europa)

For that second and last day, the day before we had planed to go to Horcada Santa Maria through Les Merines coll.

Like Saturday, we woke up early. The dinner and the breakfast didn´t seem to me enough for hungry mountaniers. In spite of it, we managed to reach our goal.

The first part of the day consisted on overcoming the LLampa cimera to Les Merines coll.

In two hours, we had got it. The views from the coll (2000m) of the Cantabrican Mountains are particurarly beatiful and different from other points of Picos.

Me below the giant shadow of Torre Santa Maria with a small part of Cantabrican mountains at the background.

The goal for that day: Horcada Santa Maria. It is the small coll of the middle more and less.

Alberto and me rising the last 200m.

Me almost on the top.

All the team resting and getting ready for the descend.

Pablo and Alberto started...

I thought that the snow was too hard in its first part for my level, but finally I was able to descend succesfully. Probably that first part reachs 40º.

ALberto and Pablo kept on descending into a awesome enviorement.

I like very much this photo with Requexon peak, clouds, and green meadows of Amieva below.

The last part of the descend from Horcada.

One look back...

From Les Merines, there are still 600m of descend left.

We arrived at the car quite tired. From the refuge to the car, our rockset were very heavy. At least, we had not to go up.

I hope I will be able to do something more, before the snow disappears.

I - Vegarredonda to Jou Canal Parda zone, 2295m 10-11 Abril-2010 (Picos de Europa)

Finally, weather was going to be nice so Alberto, Pablo and me set off our weekend in western masiff of Picos de Europa. It was a surprise because this year everyone was used to lack of nice weather.

We gathered in Oviedo at 4pm, and drove to Pan de Carmen (1050m). From the track, views of Torre de Santa Maria and others.


The first day, we only had to get to Vegarredonda.

Friday´s night we were discussing about what we were going to do on Saturday and Sunday. For Saturday we decided to go to Traviesos Peak or somewhere near it.

We started walking rather early. It was good, because we were able to walk quite time before the Sun beat us hardly.

Me an Torre de Santa Maria.

Pablo aimed to Torre de Santa Maria.

They could put their skis at 1750m. Before there, we used the grampones.

Gradually we reach high, and the enviorement changes to full of snow wherever you look.

Alberto and me with the alpine peaks at the backgrounds.

Pablo looks Traviesos peak, which becomes in his target.

Once there, we separated. Pablo went to Traviesos peak (2380m) and Alberto and me went to a coll between it and Canal Parda peak (2295m). We didn´t go with him due to bad look of its descend (there are too many rocks and not much snow in its beggining).

From our "summit" we enjoyed the similar views.

Torres del Torco, Torre de Enmedio, Tres Marias...



Me and the north face of Peña Santa.

At the east.

A creative picture...jaja.

As you can see, our descend was pretty good, specially for my board.

Few minutes later, we got together again with Pablo and we could look the extraordinary descend from the top, despite rocks.

In spite of being a hot day, snow was delicious in the whole descend.

The descend was more continous than I expected. We though we only could descend as far as 1700m more and less.

But, at the end of the day, we could skiing as far as Vegarredonda. Against any forecast, we were linked the rests of snow, which end nearby Vegarredonda.

Thanks to Alberto, I can put the graphic of desnivel. The total is 1000.

Thw second part coming soon...