16 March 2017 – Lleus to Pinos

We planned to do this walk a couple of weeks ago, but had to cancel due to bad weather

The weather forecast for this week was also for rain nearby, but we did not want to cancel again, and were rewarded with a bright sunny start.

Lleus is not the easiest of places to find, particularly for your first visit.  So we met in Jalon so that we could car share and travel in convoy.

One of the group decided to use his satnav to find the village, and set off ahead of us.   I was not too surprised to see no sign of him when we arrived.  But fortunately he did arrive just before we started the walk.   

David and I had done a recce for this walk recently, and I had recorded it on my satnav.   So I was confident that I would not have any problems.

However the satnav proved more difficult than expected.   Instead of leading me to the first waypoint on the route it insisted on directing me back to the car park!
 

Luckily I had no problems finding the route, so it did not matter.  But it would be nice to know why it is not working properly.  Quite possibly the problem is with me rather than the satnav.

The satnav provides waymarks, which confirm your exact location.  But there is a lot to be said for this old technology of building cairns – which do exactly the same thing.

In the past I have always found the route through the gorge quite difficult to find, particularly through the terraces at the end.   The satnav does not really help, as there is no obvious track to follow.

We found an easier alternative route during the recce with David, and I found it again today without any trouble

However it does pass near an empty finca which is being renovated.  So it is quite possible that we will find the alternative track blocked should the finca be permanently occupied.

We arrived at Pinos earlier than expected and found a shaded spot in the square for our picnic.   No one actually complained that it was sooner than expected.

We often find a collection of feral cats in the square, no doubt attracted by regular groups of walkers sharing their lunch with them.  Only one today, and more fussy than most.  Ruth offered her a titbit of bread and cheese, which she ignored.

We also made good time on the return journey, and were back at the cars by 2.30pm.  Nobody seemed to mind as it meant we were in the bar in Jalon by 3pm, which is when we would have expected to be just finishing our walk.

I had not realised that this was such a relatively short walk.   In fact the stats of this walk from earlier times shows it had taken about 5 hours.   Perhaps previously we had done it on a hotter day might explain the difference.

Whatever the reason it was a very enjoyable walk and no one seemed to mind having a slightly less challenging one than normal.

Thanks once again to Nick for the stats