Laguna De Peñalara
This Sunday marks our second outing into the Sierra de Guadarrama range which separates Madrid from Segovia. This time we went to the Parque Natural de Peñalara for a relatively easy hike to the Peñalara Laguna Grande. Which is a rather small glacial lake located ~2K meters above sea level. Other than the first 15 minutes, which were pretty steep, the hike was quite easy (as noted by the number of grandmothers we passed) unfortunately being a nature preserve there was no swimming allowed, in fact a cable barrier kept you from getting any closer than a 100m to the lake (rather pond) itself.
Though that hardly bothered you, as your main focus on the day was in climbing rocks! And in that there was no stopping you (at least not without the threat of tears). As typical you were a bit apprehensive at first but by the time we were leaving you would get to the top, of even the smallest rock, and demand that we take your picture.
Your second focus on the day was pointing out the cow poop along the trail, of which there was no shortage as the park is apparently home to herds of free roaming cattle. Thankfully your mom was able to find us a suitable picnic spot amongst the rocks and cow poop while you and I took our sweet time (thanks to the rock climbing) covering the last 300 meters or so.
This setting also, finally, provided you with a chance to get in some good “echos”, of which you have been entranced with ever since the first reading of “Little Beaver and the Echo“. And despite the large number of other people enjoying the day by the lake we couldn’t help but allow you to get in some good “ECHO!!”s, though we did manage to get you to only do 2 or 3 at a time and put some time in between each set.
After a couple of hours we made our way back down the mountain, slowed only by your unsurprising desire to go bouldering. At one point you just sat down and randomly started making faces, starting off with both forefingers stretching the corners of your mouth, then a few “blow-fish” looks, then just as quickly on your way again. Your mom wasn’t quick enough to get the former but she got a good one of the latter.
Towards the bottom of the trail we found a mountain spring where you happily washed your face and hand with the cold water and helped mommy to refill our water bottle.
Mountain Climber
The hike up
Picnic
Heading home
