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Saturday 26 January 2019

Pico Grande


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
Morning sunlight
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.
The yellow gorse
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.
The final scramble to the summit
Made it!
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. 
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. 
rock formations
The top of Pico Cerco
Mist on the ridge
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.
The descent
Some handrails are there over the steepest drops
Its a long way down....
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.
New earth stabilisation works to prevent landslips and flash floods
Signs of a recent landslip
Recovery was a cold beer and a chestnut scone, a local delicacy. It would have been rude not to.

Pico Grande is up in the cloud
The restaurant had a view of our descent route
A beer and a chestnut scone.

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