Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers

 - 8th February: Aitana Summit & Ridges

The long pull up the Polop - Guadalest road was eye-opening as the hard shoulders on both sides of the road have been recently painted in a sensuous, tarty bright red…………but we had better not go along that ‘road’ in this report!

Seventeen enthusiastic walkers straining at the leashes were anxious to begin the walk from the picnic site near Font Moli but were held up by Brian Norman hunting around his backpack for a tube of total sunblock. Having applied the cream and passed inspection by Katrina we moved off to begin the gradual ascent to the summit of Aitana. After almost two hours and within sight of the fissure of Fatman’s Agony the group had become well strung out and for some unknown reason one group took the high road and the remainder the low road but fortunately both groups arrived at the fissure at the same time. Having successfully negotiated the Fatman's crack lunch was taken at the usual grassy knoll and some took the opportunity to walk the 15 minutes route to the summit. Bob from Sagra displayed his talents for fell running by sprinting down………….what is this man on! It was noticed that his lunch consisted of fruit and nuts so perhaps my Fray Bentos corn-beef sandwiches with Branston pickle will have to be substituted next week. The long descent along the ridge was slow going with the loose rocky terrain difficult to negotiate but the clear, breathtaking views more than compensated for the additional effort. At this point our able walk co-ordinator Brian Johnson demonstrated his undoubted talents by switching from walk leader to walk sweeper.

The après walk analysis was taken on the sunny terrace of the log-cabin near Polop and everyone agreed it had been an exceptionally satisfying and spectacular walk. Thanks all round to Brian. Finally, it has to be placed on record following Katrina’s agreement that she stated after the walk she ‘felt knackered’. Is the Iron Lady finally starting to slow down, are her cracks starting to show (no smut thank you Mr Barraclough)………………I think we should be told.