Monday morning, sunny and cold, It seems conducive to lie to Mt.. With the naivete of those who think that the weekdays are living up to its name. But. The parking Navacerrada port (1.858 meters) It is full and costs become a hollow. It has snowed during the weekend and skiers have come to the smell of powder snow like prospectors to flash a nugget.
Leaving behind us the Bola del Mundo, we headed down the track that starts next to the chairlift Telegraph and leads to the residence of the Air Force and Interpretation Center Boca del Asno. Sled dodging tourists and unsteadily -of those who, as he wrote Camilo Jose Cela, "They cuddle up to the mountain by bus and maybe with a gun in his pocket because they think Mount bites" -, soon you arrive at the foot of another chairlift, The Showcase. To his right boot one of the most emblematic trails of the Sierra de Guadarrama, and surely the most beautiful, the way Schmid, which owes its name to a pioneering Swiss mountaineer, Eduard Schmid, which charted the route between the port of Fuenfría, which ran the hostel Alpina Real Sociedad Peñalara, Navacerrada and it almost 90 years.
Forest beauty is overwhelming, as intense as the immense blanket of virgin snow
The road is wide and stony, although it is now completely full of snow, as the entire forest as a stream meandering through the hillside. The route is well signposted, mainly with painted trees yellow circles, and even posters at some branches. The first, the circuit cross-country skiing born left hand when still take our first meters.
Forest beauty is overwhelming, as intense as the immense blanket of virgin snow. You can almost hear the verses Ax. "It's you, Guadarrama, old friend, gray and white Sierre, saw my afternoons in Madrid, I saw the blue painted?”. A pinch of reality, however, soon undoes all that bewitching. The road crosses the trail of El Bosque, just twenty meters from the hillside to be crossed carefully because skiers down at high speed and snow, snow grooming machines trodden by, It is very compact and slippery. Costs nailing edges and, truth, for such a short stretch not worth put on crampons, even at the risk of ending up rolling downhill.
The route is well signposted, mainly with painted trees yellow circles
this setback, however, It is a Rubicon crossed only those who have the firm intention to continue walking a few hours. Sled crews left behind. Only continue walkers, also snowshoe. The advantage of the way Schmid at this time of year is not to go dodging cyclists.
The road runs along the hillside, in a continuous seesaw embedded as an intruder in the silence of the forest, until, past 50 minutes, the junction is achieved by the path up the hill Windy, gateway to the Seven Peaks, Cercedilla and the port of Fuenfría. The latter we can get, Now losing altitude, If we continue straight along the path of the Cospes, enfilar but we opted for the path to the hill for, after, Fuenfría reach down from Windy Hill.
The road runs along the hillside, in a continuous seesaw embedded as an intruder in the silence of the forest
The climb to the hill is short, although steep. Shortly before reaching, we passed a hiker and his dog. You are looking for a path, actually, It is the other side of the hill and try to orient with a flat screen mobile. Walk on the diametrically opposite direction. Knows the area, confesses before asking for help. Often one is surprised by the carefree optimism with which some venture into the mountains. Hiding in the bushes, Perched on the top of a tree or barricaded behind a rock should be a little god who watches over all that legion of unconscious that often confuse the saw Retiro Park.
Almost an hour after leaving the parking Met Navacerrada Collado Ventoso (1.896 meters), which still they remain standing two stone cairns half a meter high that historically delineated the boundaries of the Crown in the mountains of Valsaín. Every time there is more snow and now we leave the road Schmid (descending on the other side to Cercedilla) to take a path to the Windy Hill is only a succession of footprints in the snow. On rocky crags there is a group of French hikers who ask for the road to Cercedilla.
The path to the Windy Hill is just a succession of footprints in the snow
We continue in solitude by the sea of ??snow that stands as a great viewpoint of Pico de Najalasna and Alto de las Guarramillas, the popular World Ball (2.262 m). The path, very exposed to the wind, luckily now not blowing too virulence, runs along a ridge to Windy hill (1.964 m), which it descends steeply along a stony forest to the Fuenfría port (a half hour route), through which the ancient Roman road.
It's almost one o'clock and plays back to the port of Navacerrada by way of Cospes to rediscover the way Schmid at the junction leading to Windy hill (the path is therefore circulated from that point). Just outside the port Fuenfría we find a fountain and a fork in the road. We must continue straight and take the left (marked with classic red and white bands of GR), descending in a very pronounced. We get confused and cluelessness forces us back uphill with the unpleasantness that always cause unnecessary efforts.
We continue in solitude by the sea of ??snow that stands as a great viewpoint of Pico de Najalasna
And 35 minutes from the port of Fuenfría step on the road again Schmid. Like in the Granja de San Ildefonso, twelve kilometers from Segovia, we expect a judiones accelerate the pace so that we are not running late. Precipitation costs us another chance to to digress for one of the side paths that descend through the meadow Navalusilla. Without further setbacks to cross again, teetering, the ski slopes of El Bosque, we reached the parking Navacerrada, which is just as busy, nearly three hours after they started walking.
the auction, in the farm, has to overcome the frustration of finding closed Casa Zaca, gastronomic emblem must. But, however, no shortage of restaurants to sample the famous judiones before touring the snowy gardens of the Summer Palace built by Felipe V to the delight of the Bourbons after buying the land to the order of the Jeronimos.
