Espolon de la Virgin Via Ferrata

6-21-2019

DAY 3

Sierra de Guara is in the foothills of the Pyrenees and it is one of the canyoneering capitals of the world. Most of the land is made of limestone, a rock that is easily worn down and grippy to the touch. This makes for incredible canyons, but for some crazy roads. All of the roads are one lane and super windy so passing cars is tricky. We have been driving under the speed limit, but the rest of the drivers don’t seem to mind living on the edge of catastrophe. The landscape is dotted with small villages with prominent bell towers on the churches. The water in the rivers (rivers here look like streams) is a ridiculous color of turquoise because of the limestone - it is unreal.

We woke up in the apartment to my parents cooking a yummy breakfast of eggs and toast. After yesterday’s adventures, we were able to find an adventure gear store/supermarket and purchased some baguettes and other food.

Because of the rain from the previous day, we decided to do a via ferrata this day instead of a canyon. We drove out to a village in the heart of the Sierra de Guara called Rodellar (making some sandwiches to pack before we left). We had to stop for a farmer who was walked his flock of sheep down the road (the sheep dogs are awesome to watch work). The via ferrata was called Espolon de la Virgin. In order to access it, we hiked through a beautiful canyon created by the Mascun River. There are wild flowers everywhere that smell amazing. Then the river then disappeared into a cave and soon we came to the start of the via ferrata. When we looked around at the cliffs, there were goats hanging out in the impossible-to-get-to places. So, we channeled our inner "Spainsh Wild Goat" got our gear on and headed up. 

The goats are the little black dots just above the trees on the cliff!

The via ferratta was vertical most of the way to the top. Everyone in our family kicked butt - no one seemed nervous or scared about being exposed so high up. The most impressive part of this route is the scenery. There are canyons in several different directions - it would be impossible to capture the beauty on camera. At the top, there were some ruins called the Castillo de la Virgin and lots of signs of goats everywhere (but no goats). We took some pictures, then headed down.

Once back at our car, we ate our sandwiches (yum), then drove to try some dry canyons in which to rappel. Unfortunately, we had some difficultly finding the trailhead, so we got a little bit of extra exercise trying to find it (much to James' dismay). Eventually, we just gave up and hiked down to explore a little bit of Rio Vero and swim. Rio Vero carved what people call the most beautiful canyon in Sierra de Guara. The walls reminded us of hiking the Narrows in Zion.

We made it back to town just in time for the restaurant to open for dinner (which is at 8:00). Very few people in this area speak English, so communication has been interesting and entertaining as we are each trying our hand at speaking Spanish. We are mostly relying on my mom to do most of the communicating and my dad just makes us all laugh when he speaks Spanish. It's great having built in entertainment!