Lost in the Sierra de las Nieves Spain

[Martin1]

During my recent trip to Andalucia in southern Spain, my pal Alan and me set off on a long trail with the aim of getting back to our hotel for an early evening drink. No chance...

We get to the westerly entrance to the Sierra de las Nieves.  I remember this from my visit ten years ago and know that eventually it leads back to our hotel some 25k away and entirely on gravel tracks.

This is stunning off road riding and for an enduro bike this is the equivalent of a race track or motorway.  It’s fast and exhilarating.  The scenery is alpine. The mountains like shards of glass.  I’m looking forward to this even on my jumbo jet of a bike, a BMW GS1200

We have detailed maps, a Garmin GPS, a Tomtom Sat Nav, the Sun and a compass.  We stop at a junction and combine more navigational aids than the NASA trips to the moon.  Aided by this massive amount of computing power we get hopelessly lost!  We were originally on schedule to arrive back at the hotel at about 1800.  We make it for 2100.  We started out in the high Sierras surrounded by goats with bells about their necks and ended up in Marbella on a motorway surrounded by Masarati’s and Aston Martin’s.

Now the actuality of lost has a large range of lostness.  You could be lost on the way back from the toilets in a bar or even lost in a shopping centre.  It’s not likely that you would fear for your life.  You wouldn’t start planning in your mind the prospect of temperatures below zero and being ripped to shreds by those jagged shards of glass as you try to make your way up and down mountain faces as threatening as the Himalayas or the Pyrenees. Would the water in the rivers be safe to drink?  Could you light a fire with a few twigs?  Would your children find all the unwashed underwear in your linen basket.  How big would the paper bill get before someone realised you hadn’t come home.  Would anyone notice anyway?

Whilst of course this seems ridiculous, you want to try it.  The wilderness is a scary and a very very big place.  Ravines are deep, slopes near vertical, altitudes high.  This isn’t like tripping off a kerb!  Hurt will hurt a lot.

The benefit of a wild imagination is that the world around us is amplified and the pleasure gained from it is amplified pro-rata.  On the other hand, when it get scary, it can scare us shitless!

We ride along and whilst none of the tracks seems familiar I make them fit the map.  The GPS is telling us we are on the wrong track.  We deduce that the GPS doesn’t understand Spanish maps so must be wrong!

I know that a key point to the route is a crossroads.  This has from memory, five ways.  Sure enough the cross roads turn up. this one only has four ways so my memory must have been wrong.  Stupid stupid GPS.  What does it know?  We abandon technology and employ guesswork, spirits, hunches and gut feelings.  It’s never worked in the past but surely it will this time. After all, our lives are at stake so best use the most reliable tools to hand.

We bring all our ideas together and decide without any shred of doubt that the track to the left must lead us home.  Off we go.  The goats stand aside. The main routes through the mountains are well graded, signposted, smooth and fast.  This track is bumpy, treacherous for my big machine, narrowing and has a grass centre and is boulder strewn.  No vehicle has passed this way in years, decades even.  Never mind, we press on.  I am coming to the limit of my strength and endurance. My pal on his mountain goat of a machine (a small trail bike) and does a forward recky.  I imagine he will reappear some months later with a long beard, leathered skin, a bearskin coat and a hat made from a dead raccoon.  He will tell me that he got to the hotel but it was burnt down by someone settling a score from the Spanish civil war.  As it happens he reappears ten minutes later looking just the same as when he set off only to tell me that we are on the wrong track. Well bugger me!

So we agree that the best course of action is to return to the cross roads and retrace our route.  This is the first sensible thing we have decided and is bourne from the wisdom of never doing what is right in the past so learning from our mistakes and armed with this life saving plan we get back to the crossroads and I suggest we try one of the other ways in the vain hope that it will lead us home.  What the hell is that all about?

Remember that this is a wilderness. No one comes this way.  Our phones don’t work.  I am running low on fuel and we are deluded and lost.  In our favour is the fact that we do this every time we go out, always arrive back late, cold and starving. Our optimism always pulls us through.  Others might argue that point but they have only got lost in a shopping centre so what do they know?

Every world weary, worldly wise adventurer will tell you that they were always sure that over the next rise will be the summit or whatever it is they strive for.  This might occur once or twice in a climb or what not.  For us the revelation was that what lay ahead was the inlet and outlet of another mountainous contour.  After maybe thirty or more of these ones resolve gets smashed to bits.  There is the distinct possibility that the track will loop back on itself as some do in this region.  Or worse, a dead end.

The continual dashing of my hopes is tiresome.  Recently I have written a blog about the power of optimism.  My pessimist pals will tell me that optimism equals a singular inability to face up to the truth and the plain and obvious facts laid before me.  My blog is called “Optimism never lets you down”.  So those stinging rebukes play in my mind as I battle with physical and mental endurance.  Those opinions are armchair bound so perhaps it’s best to ignore them.

Civilisation presents itself as a plastic pipe with some water dribbling from it.  How we cling to this flimsy evidence. Maybe we are getting closer to salvation.  My hopes rise a notch.  We have to cross a river. The bed is concrete.  More hope.  It’s slippery but we are going to cross it come hell or high water.  My arms burn.  The heat invades.  The cool water seeps through my boots. It’s heavenly.  Cool, fresh, comforting where comfort had abandoned us hours ago.  A feint glimmer.

On we press and then, before us, a Tarmac surface.  It’s silky smooth and easy to ride but do you know what, it’s gross, too easy  Please think about that notion.  Explanations would be welcome.  It was like the noise and indulgence of Marbella.  The adventure served an oblique purpose.

There were two journeys, one actual and one spiritual.  Of the two the spiritual was the most enjoyable and from which I gained the most.

So finally we return to our friendly safe haven of a hotel.  It’s much more than that now.  Our loved ones and acquaintances welcome us and the shower and beer and dinner and mild exaggeration of our epic sustain us.

The following day, I retrace my steps from the hotel backward and arrive at the crossroads.  We would have been 3 .5 km away as the crow flies.  As it was we added about 50km and a whole load of learning to un-learn for the next time we get lost.  I deduced that my GPS was set to WGS84 and the map was UTM.  When I reset the GPS it all made sense.

It was important for me to find out where we went wrong.  I needed to beat the wilderness.  I set out with genuine apprehension on my bike armed with some local advice.  This time I did it solo.  Even more stupid.  But I did it and defeated the mild demons that where created by the previous days adventure.

I initially wanted this to be a factual journal but for some reason it flowed out in a different way.  An indulgence on my part maybe but it is what it is.

If you want to experience the same then book into the Cerro de Hijar above Tolox and take the grey shale track to the right.  After about 15 minutes you will reach the proper crossroads (not the one we stumbled across).  Try every road. It’s simply stunning. Come back to the crossroads every time. On the road to the right which drops down stop about 3km along and look over to the south west.  With binoculars you will see a large green tank like structure.  That is where my pal started his recky.  It comes back in a loop to the second track we took.

[Slowboy]

I’m glad you got out alright, but if I might be permitted to observe, a bit of planning and not abandoning the technology when it failed to give the anticipated result might have had a more measured outcome. The wilderness is not scary. It’s an entirely survivable place given some basic competence in simple skills and preparedness. Lighting a fire is a simple skill, so long as you bring with you the basics, and you do have them with fuel in the tank and a spark plug in the engine.
Take the chance to learn some basic skills in the great outdoors and navigation, it might help next time. Too many times has someone had to knock on the door of the family of the blind optimist with news they rather not be carrying.
And carry a lightweight tarp or a poncho for shelter round that fire you started. A DD super light 3x3 only weighs about 750gms. That’s if you know you’re going far off piste of course.

Good luck.

[Tonibe63]

Excellent tale, having missed out on travel this year it reminds me of trips gone bye.
When things don't go to plan the adventure begins.

[Sanqhar]

Help me out here.

"I deduced that my GPS was set to WGS84 and the map was UTM"

???

thanks

tom

[gbags]

Help me out here.

"I deduced that my GPS was set to WGS84 and the map was UTM"

???

thanks

tom

+1

[Martin1]

Hi Tom,

The map we were using was drawn using the UTM method of co-ordinates rather than say WGS84 which is the default setting for many GPS's and especially the one we were using. When reset to UTM the map and our actual position married up exactly.

Hope that helps. I'm no expert and no doubt others will know much more than me,

Martin.

PS if you are still not sure let me know and I will try and explain better