It must have something to do with growing up in a place as flat as central Illinois that had really festered my intrigue with the mountains.  Part of it is the view from the top or the scenery along the way, or the challenge of getting there.  No matter the reason, it seems where ever I goe these days, there are always mountains for me to climb, and Spain with its seemingly endless ranges was definetally no exception.

The Sierra Nevada, literally "snowy mountain" in spanish, rising up from near sea level in southern Spain to the all year round snow covered hieghts of over 3400 meters, and with the highest points on the Iberian peninsula, had me filled with wonder from the begining.   The concept of walking from the cactus covered foothills up to the lifeless alpine peaks and experiencing the change in climate and bioregions along the way seemed an experience I couldn´t pass up.  After reading up on it a bit and looking at a few maps, I planned out a rough route to walk through the mountain hieghts along a river valley from Orgiva to Granada based on trails and refuge houses that the different maps said existed.  I figured I was plenty prepared with my +20 degree sleeping bag, wool shirts, and water proof jacket, gloves and tarp.

I started hiking up from Orgiva (elevation 450 meters) one late march afternoon, from temperatures nearing 70 degrees.  It had seemed like a good day at first but soon clouds rolled in and it began to drizzle.  This was the first bad sign of the trip considering it hadn´t really rained at all in two weeks before that.  Then after having a bit of trouble wondering off the trail, and through private property, I found myself back on the trail again as night began to fall.  I was lucky to find a cozy little dry ruin of a stone mason farm house with a pile of matresses inside right as it was getting really dark.  It was a good thing because it drizzeled on and off all night and I found it to be allready much colder than in Orgiva below.  I had nearly reached the highest point of operational farms and was very close to the begining of the national park.

The next morning, I was up early hiking, but constantly loosing the trail and very soon, my shoes were quite wet from the the damp ground.  I figured though that this would be no matter because I would soon be either in the forest where I could find wood for a fire to dry them, or in one of the many refuge houses that had appeared along the river on the map.  Keeping to the same trail hardly seemed important as long as I was in sight of the river and stuck to the same valley.  After all I had loosely planned this route because the river would provide easy navigation.  However, as the day went on, I began to loose faith in the maps trails and refuges.

By mid-day I was seeing small patches of melting snow between plants and soon after, as I climbed higher, the snow became more common and the plants more sparse.  I soon realized I had allready passed above the treeline and there would be little or nothing for me to burn.  Yet still I was always thinking no worry, for I was sure to find one of the refuges before nightfall, and then in mid-afternoon the clouds rolled in and it started to snow.  Its kind of surreal the way that clouds move when you are high in the mountains, quite often they engulf you without warning.  It began to snow harder and still there was no sign of a refuge, I kept going up.  This was the first time I got scared.  I needed to find something anything.  The wind picked up and was blowing the snow right at me, the snow had turned to more of a blizzard as I frantically searched for any kind of shelter.  Luckily I found a large boulder set at such an angle to provide just enough shelter and dry ground to lie down on.  The way it was situated I couldn´t even sit up.  I passed a cold restless night sleeping among animal bones that were a grimm reminder of the harse climate I had entered.  That all should have been my warning sign to turn back, but when I awoke the next morning to the sun glistening on the fresh snow, I had allready forgotten my my fear I´d had and the near sleepless night and was filled with a new sense of optimism to reach the top.  Although my shoes were wet and there was half a foot of snow surrounding me, I must have been at least three quarters of the way to the top by then and after all, the sun was shinning.

The sun however, didn´t last long.  After a few more hours of treking uphill through the ever thickening snow, I was really starting to feel the elevation in my shortness of breath.  The river had dwindled and then dissapeared under snow drift and the valley became almost pure white with only patches of rock protruding.  It began to snow again and continued on and off throughout the day.  The snow became deeper and thicker as I found myself falling into snow drift banks 3 feet high.  At first the only thing that kept me going was the thought of reaching the peak around every bend of the shallowing valley; but later as more clouds rolled in and out and the wind and snow came down harder, my motives changed to finding shelter or facing possible death.  Surely though I would find one of those refuges if I just kep going...........

It was probably early afternoon when I first saw the building in the distance.  The clouds had just cleared enough for me to catch a glimpse of the man made structure, but that was all I needed to fill my head with fantasy of a refuge with a fireplace stocked with wood, or perhaps a heated ranger station.  Whatever it was I needed to make it there, and this proved to be the hardest part of the climb.  It only got steeper, snowier and windier as my breath got shorter.  I began to have to take breaks every 50 or 100 steps just to catch my breath.  I kept only catching glimpses of the structure as I moved towards it and it moved in and out of the clouds.  It couldn´t have been much more than a half a mile away when I first saw it, but it took me near two hours to reach it at this pace.  And then when I was finally a mear 150 feet away or less a great cloud swept in with the thunderous winds and it was a total white out.  I couldn´t see more than 20 feet in front of me.  I think it was one of the scarriest moments of my life and at that point I nearly lost my nerve, but I knew I had tro make it.  I kept inching my way uphill but I was soon dissoriented.  I screamed out in frustation and agony into the whiteness over the every increasing blustery winds.  The wind blew harder and from constatly changing directions.  I kept moving slowly, slowly....... finally after what seemed a lifetime I caught sight of the building once more through the shield of white.  But when I finally reached the building, I found not warm shelter, but only a frozen busted out completely snow drift filled abandoned army bunker.

Only a hallway and two small rooms were easily accessible and every inch of the floor was completely layered in at least a foot of snow drift, the door blown wide open and all the windows busted out.  The walls were completely frosted over and the wind made a constant wistle and brought in a cold snowy draft to nearly all corners.  I went back out and began trying to walk around to the other side of the bunker to find access to a different part possibly more sheltered.  But half way around I found the bunker sat at the edge of a steep drop that I could have easily wondered off of in the white out had I missed the bunker.  I went back in and sat shivering with cold wet feet and thought if I didn´t act fast, I could get frostbite.  So with practically no other options, I took shelter in a tiny snow drift filled room the size of a small bathroom.  I tried to clear a bit of the snow to make a flat area to lay, but I still ended up laying my tarp down on over an foot thick layer of snow and ice.  I wrapped my down jacket around my feet after drying them and stuffed all my extra dry clothes into my sleeping bag and undernear of me for insulation from the snow.  My pants were covered in snow and ice up to the knees and my shoes were completely soaked with snow melt.  I curled up in my sleeping bag wrapping my tarp around me and layed down on top of my backpack for extra insulation and was really only able to lay in one postition curled up on my side with my knees bent, in order to keep my tarp above and the insulation below.  I tried to get my mind off the cold by reading Freud but kept getting distracted thinking of how completely insignificant Psycho-analysis was to my current perdicament.  I must have layed there something like 14 hours in the increasingly uncomfortable same position shivering the near sleepless night away to the constant wistle of the wind.

I awoke from my uneasy half sleep covered in snow drift.  All of my stuff was completely covered in snow, but it was light outside and I knew I had to make a move, I had to get out.  I could only hope for a clear sunny day.  Getting my iced over frozen pants on was enough of a chore in the tiny snow filled room, but it was with my shoes that I really almost lost my nerve.  The were completely frozen solid, unpliable and I couldnt even get the laces undone.  After chewing on the laces for a bit they finally came undone, but the rest of the shoe was still hard as a rock.  I kicked and pushed and pulled and strained for nearly 20 minutes just trying to fit my cold feet into the icy shoes.  At one point of the struggle to fit my heel into the shoe I seriously almost lost it, for a minute I thought I was going to die or get frost bite just because I couldn´t get my shoes on.  Yet finally, somehow, I got my heels in and it was time for me to move quickly.

I went through the hall to the door and once again felt nothing but wind and saw nothing but white.  Demoralized, I was soon again back in the cold room wrapped in my bag contemplating what to do now.  I layed there another hour or so before coming to the conclusion that I just had to go whit out or not, I had to get out of there and start walking downhill.  So I packed up my things and struggled with my shoes one more time and went back to the door.  But this time I reemerged and was met with blue skies, sunlight and some of the most amazing views of the snow-capped ridges and seemingly endless valleys that surrounded me.  I was the first chance I had actually got to see where I actually was, and I had made it to the very ridge, the peak, of the river valley, over 3000 meters in elevation.  There were a few higher peaks in the distance along steep ridges, but without climbing gear, there was no way I could go anyfurther.  Steep ridges dropped off on all sides except for the way that I had come.  Far below me on one side I saw Europe´s southern most ski resort "SolyNieve".  The wind was still intense, but the sun was shining  and I was out of the clouds and the view was indescribably incredible.  It had to be one of the stupidest things I have ever done walking up there alone and unprepared in only tennis shoes to the icy peaks, but in that moment, it was all worth it.

Although I had originally planned on continuing down the other side of the mountain, I began my decsent down the same way I had come up without dissapointment.  Knee deep in snow with soggy tennis shoes, I found myself having the time of my life running and tumbling down the snow covered embankments.  I felt like a little kid again just playing in the snow happy to be alive.  It stayed sunny for a good part of the day and going down was much quicker that going up.

By afternoon I had made it to safe grounds and by early evening, I had found a nice tranquill place to camp below the snow line.  I was able to lay my things out to dry for a couple hours before watching the sunset.  The still peacefull evening was in stark contrast to the icy windswept frozen night before.  As the sun came down over the side of the massive ridge on the other side of the valley, I took another reflective look up towards the harsh icy hieghts I had been at only hours before.  I thought of how quickly a near death experience had turned into the time of my life.  I feel it was all sort of a metaphor.  Every time you put yourself out there and really take a chance, you learn a bit more about what life truly is.  The closer we come to death, the more we experience life.