Winter is coming…

I headed up into the moun­tains today for a run, after frus­trat­ingly not being able to find any­one to go climb­ing with in the first spell of good weather we’ve had for nearly a fort­night. I knew where I was going, I’d been before with Simon. Blast down the motor­way towards Léon, come off at Cam­pomanes, then fol­low the signs to Soti­ello, through Tuiza and on to Tuiza Arriba — the end of the road. After get­ting stuck behind some heavy machinery on its way to one of the many con­struc­tion sites for the new high-speed rail­way, I passed the last half built tun­nel, and I was away, slowly twist­ing my way up the wind­ing switch­back road to the top. After the steep climb of almost 1000 metres (poor car!) which had my water bottle crack­ling all the way up with the pres­sure, I parked up in Tuiza Arriba, got out of my car and stared at the moun­tains in front of me.

Snow on the moun­tains behind Tuiza Arriba (1300m), Asturias, Spain

They were covered in snow.

Of course, I knew that the first snows had hit the Picos de Europa last week, but this was some one thou­sand metres lower in alti­tude, and still there was a decent cov­er­ing. My mind was racing with the pos­sib­il­it­ies for climb­ing in the big moun­tains. Now the need to find a part­ner of equal abil­ity and exper­i­ence is even more press­ing. I pulled myself away from the view and after a quick stretch — I never was a great believer in long warm-ups — I set off run­ning. I wanted to reach the col above the vil­lage so that I could see the view on the other side, and with sun­set in two hours, I was going to have to get a move on. Oh well, I thought, I’ve packed a head-torch, what’s the worst that can happen.

As it turns out, Bulls. Lots of bulls, all over the path I was run­ning along. I’d driven nearly an hour to get here, there was no way I was turn­ing back. I star­ted trot­ting towards them, and to my amazement, they all turned and ran away. It must have been a bad hair day. With my bovine obstacles out of the way, all that stood between me and the col was… well, a very steep hill. I arrived at the top, some 400 metres higher and 4 kilo­metres along the track, pant­ing and splut­ter­ing my way to an incred­ible view. After soak­ing it up for a few minutes, I noticed that my hands were numb. It was windy and cold up here, and I was dressed for run­ning, not for hanging about. Bet­ter get back on the move, before I get so cold that I injure myself. I looked behind me at Tuiza, my start­ing point. It seemed a long way, although thank­fully now it was a long way down, instead of a long way up.

Look­ing down on Tuiza from the col above. You can just see the vil­lage in the val­ley below.

I tumbled back down, my earlier adversar­ies nowhere to be seen, and had a quick look around the vil­lage before get­ting into my car and rid­ing the brakes all the way down to the motor­way. This is how I want to spend my after­noons. This is why I came here. This is Asturias.

Related posts:

1. Junkie
2. A busy few months
3. Mañana…
4. Skin Up, Skid Down