twenty-ten in 3 acts: @ 11,413

Whew, this weekend was an adventure! I succesfully made it up to the highest point on the Iberian Peninsula (though not all that high) ~ the summit of Mulhacen (11,413-feet).

I will admit, the weekend wasn't all fun....there were a few hiccups.

First, I got food poison on Thursday night & was throwing up all night...the climb was scheduled to depart Saturday morning so I debated just going back to Granada and skipping the whole thing. However, by Friday night I was feeling a bit better and managed to keep some food down, so decided to go for it!

The other hikers were three canadians from Victoria BC. Really nice folk- one of them is apparently a well known lawyer in Canada (he defended the Orca that recently killed a woman who fell into it's tank) and his son and another friend were with him. He had an interesting story - he had been in a bad ski accident 7 years ago and severed an artery in his neck. They though it had healed, but about 6 months later he sneezed and dislodged a blood clot which went to his brain and caused a stroke. He got bored with rehab and started climbing in a climbing gym where he met Dan (the other hiker). Since Chris' recover, they have climbed a mountain together about once every year!

On saturday AM we hiked up to Refugio Poquiera, a hikers hut on the south face of Mulhacen.

Hiccup #2 was that somehow the guide didn't book beds in the hostel (he thought he had, but the hut caretakers had actually told him there were no beds available). With nowhere to get a decent night's rest, we decided to snooze for an hour or two of on the benches and then do a night ascent!

At about 3am early on sunday morning, we set out for the 3.5 hr +/- trek to the summit. It's a pretty straightforward mountain (not technical), just a steady up-hill to the summit. We summited just before sunrise. It was quite beautiful, and eerie o climb at night - so quiet, with the only sound a chk-chk of crampons on ice.

We headed back down pretty quickly cus it was windy and cold at the top, stopped for breakfast at the hut and then booked for another 3 hours of hiking back to the car. Whew! An exhausting but also exhilarating weekend in the Sierra Nevada.