Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers

Notes for Walk Leaders issued by the Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers

General Points

• Most walkers are around retirement age and many are not “experienced” mountain walkers.
• Our walkers are asked to assess their ability to do the route from the details given in the programme.
• They can only do this if the information is accurate.
• It is recognised that leaders’ views on what is easy, difficult, fast or slow can vary wildly and so the following guidance has been compiled to encourage consistency.

ROUTE ASSESSMENT BY LEADERS

Distance

Best measured by walking the route with a GPS device. Desk studies involve measurement from large scale maps with a measuring instrument or a length of cotton. Note that the squares on the 1:50,000 are 1km apart. The zigzags of the mozarabic/mule tracks can double or treble the measured distance from a map. The odometer in your car can measure distances if you can drive parts of the route or else reckon on 4km/hour as an easy walking speed.

Time

Walk the route to gauge the time, but remember that a party will be slower than an individual or small group. Allow longer for water stops in hot weather, half an hour for lunch and 15-30 minutes for contingencies.

Ascent

Means the total accumulated ascent for the route. This must be at least the altitude difference between the highest and lowest point of the route plus an allowance for additional climbs as the route switchbacks. Most GPS will log this information or use an altimeter. From a large scale map you can count contour lines which are every 20 metres on the 1:50,000 maps (Mapa Militar).

Difficulty Classification

E - Easy: A walk of up to 4½ hours on good surfaced tracks and less than 200metres ascent.

M - Moderate: up to 12km, less than 400 metres ascent and less than 50% rough going.

MS - Moderately Strenuous: Up to 500 metres ascent and/or more than 15 km with some rough going taken at a reasonable pace.

S or VS - Strenuous or Very strenuous: More than 600 metres and/or more than 15km with steep, loose or heavily vegetated sections. This is difficult to assess and the leaders are asked to bear in mind the pace of the walk when allocating grading.

X - Experienced walkers routes: leaders should reserve this category for routes which require considerable stamina and/or significant scrambling skills on rough, steep or exposed sections.

Scr - Scrambling: This implies the need for handholds to ascend steep rock pitches with a sense of exposure to vertigo and where a slip could lead to a serious accident.

A - All good tracks

B - Less than half the route on rough ground

C - More than half the route on rough ground

Leaders should grade on the higher side if in doubt and use previous programme information to help grade a walk in context. Seek the advice of other leaders who may have knowledge of the area to help you.

Pace

It is the leader’s responsibility to adjust his or her pace to avoid the party getting unduly strung out. This in turn leads to those at the front having to wait around for long periods whilst those at the back get little or no breaks. The route can take longer to complete as a result.

Boards

Don’t forget to pick up the CBMW direction boards before setting off on the walk. We do not want to advertise the location of empty cars to the light fingered fraternity