España, part 4: a via ferrata near Mallos de Agüero

Sunday after Thanksgiving-- 1 December-- dawned clear again- time for more outdoor adventures. We piled our gear and ourselves into our rental and road tripped south to the Mallos de Agüero , singing songs loudly the whole way.

I had been reading a magazine about adventures in the Pyrenees, but didn't imagine our destination to be the very distinctive and impressive peaks I'd seen. One could spend years exploring this area and still not find the end of adventures. One could simply climb these rocks for years too. Chris was tempted to stay.

We headed away from the cliffs, to a parking lot, and rigged ourselves for another via ferrata on a cliff opposing the main ones. Nice weather for the 1st of December. A panorama from our parking lot

Parking lot chaos and sadness in leaving Colter behind again (leg still pulled)

Shrubbery = wild rosemary & thyme. Everywhere.

Lots of helmets!

Views from the approach hike: up valley, and back behind us.

To the side (the white are bird droppings- this area is a vulture sanctuary)

Our destination: up to the right and up that face.

Snack break and then up to the base of the via ferrata

Through the woods

And up

And up, with occasional views of where we were headed (and from where we had come)

At last, the base of the cliff. A short refresher on via ferratas: each of us had two clips and a harness. This via ferrata went up, and up to the top of the cliff. No rope needed- just careful diligence in clipping into the metal as you went. I was last in line, so hence the many photos from behind.

Lots of waiting as the train of climbers moves carefully up

The view from behind

The pitches got a bit steeper as we went up. Example iron posts as footholds.

The top (and secure enough to take a selfie)

Lunch break on top of the vulture observatory... of course we had to climb it.

Lots of vultures circling high overhead

After jumping (with varying degrees of grace) off the building, we worked our way down. Scrubby hike, followed by a down via ferrata with some dicey moves. This was the hardest part of this adventure by far! Going up is easy. Going down? Well, you can see where you are going!