8 Feb 2010 - Cross of Montgo

Despite a forecast of rain for the afternoon, eleven of us turned up for the walk. We started from Los Lagos, where most of our Montgo walks start.

The first half hour was through the woods. A recent storm had caused a lot of damage to the trees, but apart from one which blocked the path at the start of the walk, the rest of the path had been cleared.

However along the whole length of the path we passed trees which had been blown down or cut down.

Then we started to climb, and climb and climb. This is one of our more difficult hill walks and the chatter was soon replaced by silence as everyone got on with the climb

This is the part which Jan dislikes. The path becomes indistinct, with large boulders and some “exposure” (narrow path close to the edge of a steep fall). However it was not as bad as she had remembered it from last time.

There was then another steep climb to the main Montgo circuit path. NOT the top of Montgo, but far enough for most folk!

It took us about two hours to get to our first “banana stop”, and the faces say it all…..

The view would be enough for most people to have achieved. But our leader Pat is made of stronger stuff. We were allowed ten minutes rest, and then it was off again – to the cross.

It took another half hour to get to the track which leads to the cross, and then a steep climb for 15 minutes to get to the cross itself

We reached the cross at about 12.30pm, too early for lunch. So after a very short break for a photo opportunity………

….it was back down again to retrace our steps to our earlier halt, where we would now have lunch.

We took the same path down from the cross to the Montgo circuit path, but it was much more difficult than going up. This is often the case, particularly on ill defined paths.

The smiles are because they are on the main track around Montgo. It is a very good path and no more climbing before we reach our lunch stop.

Half an hour later we reach our lunch spot, and settle down to a well deserved rest. It is now 1.30pm and we are all ready for our picnic. Its overcast, but still dry and no sign of the promised rain.

Barry and Wendy settle down to lunch…………

…..and the rain arrives.

I will not dwell on the journey back to the cars. For the first hour our waterproofs were on and off and on. Though overcast it was still quite warm, and when the rain stopped we were soon uncomfortable in our waterproofs, however as soon as we took them off the rain would start again. As we reached the bottom of Montgo and entered the woods again the rain increased in volume and we were a sad looking group as we finally reached the cars. By the time we reached Parcent it was dry, by the time we had our shower the sun was shinning again!