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| The summit of Pico Grande is to the left of the photo |
Slightly to the south
of the main ridge that runs west to east like a spine across Madeira lies
another hill by the name of Pico Grande. At 1655m its smaller than the more
famous peaks making up this spine but its ascent is a good day out nonetheless,
starting out in the village of Jardim de Serra and finishing deep in the valley
of Curral das Freiras, the Valley of the Nuns. Last year we had walked this
route missing out the ascent of Pico Grande as we had set out too late in the
day but this time a pre-daylight start saw us on the first bus out – after a
panicked visit to the petrol station to buy a pretty random array of food as
the hotel had forgotten to supply some sandwiches as we requested and buying
food on route was not going to be an option. I knew of one little shop in
Jardim de Serra but relying completely on that seemed like a high risk strategy
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| Morning sunlight |
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| The ridge to Pico Grande |
For anyone with a car
the walk starts at the forestry lodge at Boca da Corrida but for us the bus
stopped in the village some 2 miles before the forestry lodge meaning an uphill
climb of 2 miles on the road to reach the trailhead. It wasn’t a bad thing as an
uphill stretch warmed us up nicely as it wasn’t the warmest of mornings. All
things relative I suppose. On reaching Bocca da Corrida the mountain panorama
stretches out before you including the strange knoll like lump that forms the
summit of Pico Grande.
“Height-wise Pico Grande is not in the top 10
of Madeira summits, but in relation to the difficulty of the ascent and the
quality of the views it certainly belongs to the best of them. This free
standing mountain, sitting on top of a of a huge plinth, has fascinating tufa
formations in the summit area shaped by wind and water” (Guide book
description)
The trail winds its
way along the hillside heading northwards on a good and pretty easy track, any
exposed bits are fenced off and any tricky steps have handrails, and it was
turning into a gloriously warm day. At one point I was convinced we were about
to be attacked by a swarm of killer bees such was the incredible noise of the
honey bees in amongst the gorse flowers. I suppose it was all the more obvious
against the silence of the mountains where we were just about the only ones
around and there is no traffic noise from anywhere.
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| The yellow gorse |
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| The summit is the rocky lump to the left |
The path to the peak
cuts through the gorse on to the other side of the ridge where a second path cuts
down down to the Valley of the Nuns. From here the climbing gets a little bit
trickier and the path becomes rougher, gradually getting steeper through the
gorse until you pop out of the gorse onto a plateau with a view across to the
ridge and to the wind farm on the hillside above Rabacal. Then the fun starts. Reaching
the summit of Pico Grande involves a scramble up a large bulbous lump of rock
about 10 m high. There is a cable attached presumably to assist climbers but
Simon and I both looked at it and decided that hanging on to the rock would
probably be the safer option. I noticed that the two walkers who we had caught
up and who were just ahead of us had decided to give the final scramble a miss
but we decided to go for it. The panoramic view from the summit was fantastic.
These hills are notorious for being shrouded in mist and as I watched I could
see the fingers of mist making their way over the shoulder of the hillsides
from both the north and the south. We scrambled down, me making very heavy
weather over what was an easy scramble and having to hand Simon my bag – I’m not
as flexible as I used to be, its an age thing.
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| The final scramble to the summit |
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| Made it! |
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| Looking across to Pico Arieiro (1816m), Pico Ruivo (1860m) and Pico Coelho (1733m) |
The plateau was as
good a lunch spot as any and as we really hadn’t got much in the way of lunch
with us we settled for the custard tarts purchased from the Ritz the day before
which were by now rather squashed. I couldn’t face the chocolate croissants
which were our other purchase from the petrol station (footnote: these
croissants came with us back to UK due to my hatred of food wastage but they
really were not worth that level of effort) A quick scan of the map showed
another wee peak slightly further north so we decided as we were there it would
be rude not to visit. We took a slightly less than direct route to it but soon
enough we were on the top of Pico Cerco at 1620m. After exploring the
interesting rock formations, the “tufa”, we retraced our steps down the hill
side back to where the paths had diverged in amongst the gorse bushes.
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| Champion custard tart muncher! |
We met a
few people who seemed to be finding the climb up hard work but what are you
supposed to say to them really when the ask how far is it to the top? It
depends how quickly you are moving! That’s probably not the sort of answer they
are wanting. We made comforting noises about how nice the weather was and
carried on down the hill.
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| rock formations |
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| The top of Pico Cerco |
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| Mist on the ridge |
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| The village of Faja dos Cardos sits at the head of the Vally of the Nuns |
At the point at which
the path diverges you start the long descent towards the Valley of the Nuns
dropping steeply down some 1000m into the valley. I was really quite glad I
wasn’t having to run this quad crushing steep descent. It was along descent
from the mountain side covered in gorse, through the laurel trees then the chestnut
trees with their harvest spread about the forest before finally reaching the
little houses and farmsteads in the village with their coops of chickens and
banana plantations.
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| The descent |
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| Some handrails are there over the steepest drops |
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| Its a long way down.... |
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| Chestnuts! |
We followed the signs
to the village of Curral Das Freiras and this took us over the road which
snakes along the bottom of the valley. A large amount of earth stabilisation
works have taken place to redirect the flow of water through a culvert under
the road and to sure up the steep banking at the side of the road. I noted a
few small boulders and bits of debris on the road which I guess hints at the
reason for the stabilisation works. Madeira is very much at the mercy of the
forces of nature as the devasting floods of 2011 demonstrated. We climbed up
the impressive concrete wall via the steps and headed along a path to a small
bridge over the river. Fallen trees and the flattened fence were evidence of another recent landslip. We
crossed the bridge and soon were at the centre of the village.
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| New earth stabilisation works to prevent landslips and flash floods |
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| Signs of a recent landslip |
