That little spire of rock on the right of the photo is the Naranjo de Bulnes (The orange of Bulnes: so named for its colour in the evening sun). It's not small, the North face, in profile, is 500 and some metres high. And it's hard climbing too, a couple of weeks ago a couple of basque climbers opened up a new route they reckon is 9a (ok, it has one pitch of 9a and the rest is an easy 8a-c)... This was covered with a two page spread in the local newspaper...

We were up there at the weekend, staying in the refuge at the base of the Naranjo, part of a weekend walk with the mountain group. We went up in the cable car from Fuente De, which meant starting at 1900m and then up to 2400m and down a cliff hanging on to some ice covered cables. Liz was a little spooked by the unexpected appearance of a sheer descent but she made it without incident (albeit a little gingerly, which is perfectly understandable). From there we walked through the high part of the central massif where there's almost no green, only patches of scrubby grass and moss, and the odd bit of lichen.

On Sunday we set off from the refuge nice and early and headed up to the Horcada de Caín, the pass to get to our descent. The descent was via the Canal de Dobresengo... 2000m of down in about 7km of path... it's steep (although not a cliff) and sustained. We started going down at 12 noon and reached the bottom at 3:30. It's a wonderful route though, you have to keep stopping so you can take in the surroundings, it's unlike any other mountain range I know.  ¶ 9:21 PM