Lanzarote: Montaña Corona

This short excursion to Montaña Corona can't really be described as a hike and it wasn't even originally on our itinerary but it is worth doing if you're in the vicinity. We'd planned a longer, coastal route for our final walk on the island but the day before we were due to do this we visited Cueva de los Verdes, a six kilometre lava tube in the north of the island. Around the entrance to this cave system stretch the badlands known as Malpais de la Corona and standing proudly above all of this, as though admiring its handiwork, is Volcán de la Corona itself. In fact this jagged volcanic cone was impossible to miss almost wherever we were in the north of the island that day, rising as it does to almost 2000 feet above sea level.

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Lanzarote: Montaña Guardilama and Montaña Tinasoria

Our second hike in Lanzarote took us to La Geria, the island's primary wine-producing region. The start and end point was the village of Uga, a 40 minute bus journey from Arrecife, and we arrived there under cloudless blue skies to find it was as quiet as Blancha Mancha had been a couple of days earlier. Houses gleamed white under the morning sunshine as we headed to the outskirts of the village and set off up a track through farmland. A farmer was working in one of the fields to the side, the first person we'd seen since leaving the bus, and I gave him a cheery wave as we walked by - he seemed a bit startled but he smiled, waved back and shouted, "Holá!"

Looking back down to Uga.

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Lanzarote: Caldera Blanca

I'm sure I must have walked over a fair amount of volcanic rock in my time on the hills of England and Wales but none of it displayed its origins as obviously as the terrain we hiked in Lanzarote earlier this month. This was our first visit to the Spanish island just off the north west coast of Africa and we were determined to make the most of our week there, alternating hiking days with days exploring the local culture and history.

The choice of Caldera Blanca as our first walk of the holiday was pretty much made for us - almost every website we visited (including the Happy Hiker's excellent pages about Lanzarote) said this volcanic cone was a must-do. We were staying in Arrecife so it was easy enough to set the alarm for an early start and jump on the bus to Mancha Blanca*, a village just a few miles away from this dormant volcano.

Caldera Blanca from Mancha Blanca.

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A Carneddau Traverse

While I was doing some housekeeping on the blog over Christmas I realised I still hadn't written up the traverse of the Carneddau mountains I did in 2017. A linear walk, it took me from the Ogwen Valley in the south to the edge of Llanfairfechan on the north-western fringe of the mountains. Aside from a little scrambling near the beginning, there were no technical challenges but I did find it a real test of stamina, with some 4000 feet of ascent over its 11.5 mile course. It was too good a day in the hills to leave off the website so here it is - more photo-heavy and a little less verbose than my usual trip reports due to much of the detail being lost in the mists of time.

Y Braich, from a previous walk. Pen Llithrig y Wrach is the mountain lit up in the background.

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Kinder Scout: the River Kinder and Kinder Gates

Intrepid explorers walking the length of the world's great rivers has become something of a cultural phenomenon in recent years - think Ed Stafford trekking along the course of the Amazon for almost two-and-a-half years or Levison Wood hiking the Nile from its origin in the Nyungwe Forest, Rwanda to the Egyptian shores of the Mediterranean.

With adventures like these in mind it's little wonder that we became suddenly inspired to walk the River Kinder a couple of weeks ago, from its source deep in the Peak District plateau to... Well, only as far as the Downfall actually, because we wanted a nice circular route that didn't involve traipsing downhill and back up again. And we didn't quite walk it from its source, to be honest, because - rather like the Nile - there are several indistinct points at which its waters bubble up from the ground and start their journey to the sea. If we'd put more time and effort in to complete the River Kinder's entire three-mile course, no doubt I'd have a book deal and probably my own TV show by now but we didn't so you'll have to make do with another verbose blog post and some occasionally over-exposed photos.

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