We drove from Villanueva del Rosario up through the Dehesa de Hondonero to park at Mirador Alto de Hondonero. We had a shock when we got out of the car because it was so windy but we still decided to do El Chamizo. We started off at a brisk pace until we reached the steep scree slope following the fence where we had to slow down a little. Going onward and upwards until we reached a crossing point in the fence which led up a green section to the right just below the ridge, this gave us some shelter from the wind. The clouds were swirling above is and eventually the route disappeared completely in cloud. We went up onto the ridge where the going became much harder and involved a lot of scrambling and we finally made it to the summit of El Chamizo (1640 metres) in about an hour and fifteen minutes at which time we were above the cloud. We had to wait some time on the summit until we managed to get some breaks in the cloud and took some photos of the magnificent views. Finally the clouds broke a little and we could see the way back down the green valley which was well marked by cairns which had been obscured by cloud on the way up. We got back to the fence without any problems and made the tricky descent down the scree slope back to the car in about two and a half hours.
Labels: walks
