DISASTER IN THE SNOW
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| Siera de Guadarrama Behind Tres Cantos |
Santa gave los ninos a snow sled each, so at some stage it was obvious we would have to venture into the winter wonderland. Two weekends ago, that time had come, and so the LegsyBoys excitedly rugged up and piled into Rocinante for the relatively short trip into the nearby 'hills', the
Sierra de Guadarrama. It's only 35 minutes to the village of
Cercedilla located in the foothills of the sierras, at which point the single lane road escalates markedly. The road to Cercedilla parallels the mountains, which are shrouded in fog - is this a good or bad sign? Because thhere is no snow at 1,000 metres (and we can't see any higher), Buzzy cracks it in the back seat (he's
SO like his father!).
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| 1800 Metres and climbing |
As we start to climb, white flakes dust the windscreen, but Buzz is still unconvinced; there's none on the ground. Fortunately, Aimee is a little more optimistic, so it's only one way disenchantment - at the moment. Finally, at
1400 metres the tell tale signs of
'white stuff' on the side of the road gets the back seat excited; yeah, alright, and the front too. It's bumper to bumper at snail pace from here on as we snake our way upwards, and we're getting impatient as we slowly count of the roadside markers every 100 metres. Twenty minutes sees us reach the ski village at the top of the pass (this is the mountain link to Segovia); we're
2,000 metres up and we're lucky to find a car park fairly quickly. It's nice and warm inside Rocinante!
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| Barely Visible Chalet |
We quickly don our warmest clothes and open the doors -
JEEEEEZUZ!!! I know it's snowing, but nobody said it would be
FREEZING as well....there's a 20 kph howling wind that is whipping the snow into something approaching a
blizzard, but we're oblivious to it all and head for the toboggan slopes. As we pass by the barely visible chalet, we notice the red neon temperature gauge telling us it's
-4C, and there's a
wind chill factor of another -10C. No worries,
BRING-IT-ON (as Julia would doubtless say), the LegsyBoys are up for this. Buzz gets in a few runs on a small slope and is valiantly trying to manoeuvre his sled, with varying degrees of success, whilst the Aimster is happily making body imprints in the snow. We decide to walk the 800 metres to the proper toboggan run located near the ski lift that takes you to the summit (a few hundred metres further up and where the serious stuff happens). That's about when the party ended! By the time we reached the run, the ice winds have inflitrated through our
denim jeans and I can feel my skin ulcerating. Dulcinea is wearing gumboots and I'm shod in my trusty leather Birkenstocks; los ninos are wearing
canvas Converse gym shoes! By now, their shoes are saturated, their socks wringing wet, and their feet totally frozen; to make matters worse, the Aimster has somehow managed to twist her ankle by virtue of her involuntary shuddering and convulsions! It is, by any stretch, an unmitigated disaster!
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| Not A Weasel In Sight! |
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| ...Or An Eagle! |
The area
usually abounds with wildlife normally, but even the ibex, deer, badgers, weasels, hares and eagles aren't silly enough to come out in this. The tears are flowing copiously as we abort and head back towards the chalet in search of something hot to warm us. No dice, it's packed with like minded snow bunnies, and so we head back to Rocinante. By the time we reach her, Buzzy and Aimee are both sobbing uncontrollably, shivering and quaking in their saturated clothing; we've all got
stalagtites of 'boogah' hanging from our nostrils and body hair, and I'm forced to try and scrape the ice from the windscreen using the knuckles of my gloves - I must remember to buy one of those ice scrapers! As we made our way home and the warmth of the air inside the car thawed them out (the heater was set on 35C!!), Aimee & Buzz crashed in a beautiful mass of sibling exhaustion. I must confess that I actually
LOVED it; there may be three LegsyBoys who like the feel of warmth on their Anzac backs, but one of us prefers to bask in the crispness of winter. That I spent the next week in bed battling the worst case of flu I've ever had is purely incidental!
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| Do I LOOK Happy!! |
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| Nightmare On The Sierra |
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| Pull mum..... |
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| Mum...Pull! |
To say it didn't go well would be an understatement; we've never been snow bunnies and were totally ill-prpeared for our adventure; the only thing we got right was finding the place and at least having some dry clothes for Aimee and Liam to change into (even if their uncontrollable shivering made it almost impossible to perform the simplest of tasks, like putting on dry socks). But you know, we LegsyBoys are a resilient lot. Subject to certain conditions, Aimee and Liam want to give it another go; and so we've been to
Decathlon (I'll tell you what that is at a later time) and they both now have
snow shoes (a bargain at 12 euros), and I now own a
purple beanie that makes me look like a Melbourne Storm supporter; tomorrow we'll fit them out in
puffer snow trousers (10 euro a pair - another bargain), and then we'll give it another crack on Saturday. The weather is glorious but cold, clear blue skies that are forecast to continue for a few more days, so this time we'll get it right. We'll even take a carrot for the nose!!
BRING.....IT.....ON........
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| At Least It's Warm! |
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| Rocinante & Don L |
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| Cold? Moi? |
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| The Aftermath - Exhausted |
We quickly don our warmest clothes and open the doors - JEEEEEZUZ!!! I know it's snowing, but nobody said it would be FREEZING as well....there's a 20 kph howling wind that is whipping the snow into something approaching a blizzard, but we're oblivious to it all and head for the toboggan slopes. As we pass by the barely visible chalet, we notice the red neon temperature gauge telling us it's -4C, and there's a wind chill factor of another -10C. No worries, BRING-IT-ON (as Julia would doubtless say), the LegsyBoys are up for this. Buzz gets in a few runs on a small slope and is valiantly trying to manoeuvre his sled, with varying degrees of success, whilst the Aimster is happily making body imprints in the snow. We decide to walk the 800 metres to the proper toboggan run located near the ski lift that takes you to the summit (a few hundred metres further up and where the serious stuff happens). That's about when the party ended! By the time we reached the run, the ice winds have inflitrated through our denim jeans and I can feel my skin ulcerating. Dulcinea is wearing gumboots and I'm shod in my trusty leather Birkenstocks; los ninos are wearing canvas Converse gym shoes! By now, their shoes are saturated, their socks wringing wet, and their feet totally frozen; to make matters worse, the Aimster has somehow managed to twist her ankle by virtue of her involuntary shuddering and convulsions! It is, by any stretch, an unmitigated disaster!
To say it didn't go well would be an understatement; we've never been snow bunnies and were totally ill-prpeared for our adventure; the only thing we got right was finding the place and at least having some dry clothes for Aimee and Liam to change into (even if their uncontrollable shivering made it almost impossible to perform the simplest of tasks, like putting on dry socks). But you know, we LegsyBoys are a resilient lot. Subject to certain conditions, Aimee and Liam want to give it another go; and so we've been to Decathlon (I'll tell you what that is at a later time) and they both now have snow shoes (a bargain at 12 euros), and I now own a purple beanie that makes me look like a Melbourne Storm supporter; tomorrow we'll fit them out in puffer snow trousers (10 euro a pair - another bargain), and then we'll give it another crack on Saturday. The weather is glorious but cold, clear blue skies that are forecast to continue for a few more days, so this time we'll get it right. We'll even take a carrot for the nose!! BRING.....IT.....ON........
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