Downhill...

Today plenty of downhill, we're headed back to Orgiva which means going from 2500 m above sea level to 400 m. But first we take a last look at Pico Veleta our not reached goal of yesterday. We'll be back !

The downhill is not for free unfortunately, we first have to climb the only road leaving the refugio, this means the same climb of about 200 heightmeters again before we can start the descend.

We start of on a wide jeep track which is a nice start of the descend to catch some speed. The track brings us back to the vegatation, soon we're back among the trees and not for long we're on a nice single track through the woods which brings us back to the entrance of the National Park

Now a little bit of descending on the large dirt track being carefull for cars, after a 10 minutes descend we're at an interesting spot: a singletrack which cuts down more steeply down the mountain then the dirt track. Here starts some real fun, this trail starts out nicely, then we meet some walkers going up so we slow down a bit, say hello and let go of the brakes again for some interesting twists and turns and all to sudden we're on the tarmac again. We regroup and do the next cut-off, which has more of singletrack feeling with more vegatation. After regrouping again on the road again, I was ready to go for the next bit which would bring us back to Capiliera, but David said we're going to take another way to Capiliera which meant a little bit of climbing again. But it was worth it! This descend is very challenging, the underground is like a large rock wall on which you ride but the rock is not vertical, but lies more horizontally (lucky for us). During this descent I manage to go over the bars and kiss the ground with no severe injuries, just scratches on me and my ego. David 'Moots' on the other hand falls too, but he isn't so lucky and hurts his wrist badly, he can only use his one hand now. Lucky for us and him we're in Capiliera now, so we take a break for a drink.
After the break 'Moots' decides to ride back home on the road, because he hardly can use his hand.

We on the other hand continue our descend over the nice singletracks, we pass Bubion to follow the GR7 down in the direction of Pampaneira which has some nice urban technical bits and back on the GR7 again to finish this bit at the power central.




Now it's time again for a little bit of climbing, this time on the road. After 3 kilometers we leave the asphalted road again and find us some dirt tracks which will bring us back too Orgiva in a fast way.




We end our day's ride again in the bar on the market in Orgiva for some well earned beer and tapas, this concludes our 3 day high altitude program.

Statistics: ... to come