A Sea to Summit Challenge.

( " The Med to Mulhacen " )

It was September 2005 and we had just finished the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, a 158km and 8600M of height gain race, considered the toughest and most demanding ultra in Europe. We were satisfied with ourselves, although none of our team really did anything spectacular, we all aimed just to finish and systematically plodded our way, all around the Mont Blanc massive, though France, Italy, Switzerland and then back into France to finish comfortably within the allowed time limit. When we arrived back in Spain, our appetites for adventure running were truly awakened and we eagerly sought new adventures.

I had read on several occasions of cyclists taking a route from sea level and cycling to the summit of Mulhacen at 3482m, in one push. This adventure is well documented and a quick Internet search revealed that it was considered a challenge to which only the very best cyclists would aspire, many teams opting to do the climb in two days. A further search revealed that no one had actually attempted to actually run the route on foot. This would be our challenge. We would run from the beach at Salobreña on the Granada coast at 0M to the summit of Mulhacen at 3482m which is the highest point on the Iberian Peninsula, and in one stage. As adventure runners, this is what we aspired to, new and exciting challenges where the outcome was unknown. Would the distance defeat us ? Would the lack of oxygen above 3000m prove too much after all those kilometers from the sea ? Why hadn't any body attempted the route
before ? Was it too difficult or was it just a question that nobody had the imagination to try it before ? What would we do if one of the team became ill ? All of these questions and the uncertainty of the challenge only made the whole thing infinitely more interesting. However, whilst we were still preparing the plans for the attempt, the weather broke and along came the first snows of winter. We would have to wait until the following year.

Friday the 14th July saw 7 of us with one hand each in the sea water at exactly 8 o'clock in the evening. The idea was to be touching the sea at 0m when we started. We had decided to wait until the following summer simply because the upper part of the challenge could really be quite dangerous if the weather was a bit dodgy. When you consider just how tired and drained of energy we would be after the climb from sea level, and the fact that we would be completely unsupported once we were inside the boundary of the Sierra Nevada national park, we decided that we had to have relatively warm weather on the summit. We not only had to make the summit, but also get back down again safely. Unfortunately relatively mild weather on the summit meant blisteringly hot weather lower down. To compensate the 40ºC+ daytime temperatures in this part of Spain at this time of year we decided to take the lower section at night time, run through the night and then planned to be entering the park with the first light of day.

So, here we all were on the beach at Salobreña with one hand in the water wondering just how the events were going to unfold. José Antonio Méndez López a close friend of one of the runners had volunteered to act single handedly as our support crew. We hadn’t really appreciated just how important this would be, and even at sea level, right by the beach and at 8 in the evening it was still hot and in the mid 30s centigrade. We would loose a great deal of fluids in the coming hours and Mendez would be our only supply.

We had originally planned to run on the main road that joins Motril to Granada. A cycle track had been marked at the side of the main carriage way but intense traffic made this prospect look decidedly dangerous. The adjacent river bed on the other hand looked very appealing. We set out from the beach and immediately followed a dusty track that laid parallel to the Guadalfeo river. This we followed for approximately 5 kilometres until we were forced into the dried up river bed itself. The comfortable running on the track turned into an ankle twisting cross country adventure where we had to pay the utmost attention. A slight miscalculation would result in a twisted ankle or worst. The smooth rounded pebbles, of golf ball to football size looked harmless enough, but the smoothness meant that it was easy to slip and although we thought that this would be similar to running a mountain trail we were wrong. However, 15 kilometers later and we hadn’t suffered any injuries so it wasn’t that bad. Just after joining the river bed, we made our way through Los Vados, a spectacular limestone gorge of some 300m in height. A couple of us are climbers as well and we pointed out routes that we had done and spoke enthusiastically of adventures lived out on these faces in times gone by. The most famous route being Orion, a 6c, 200m route that takes a line directly up the huge orange wall on the left hand side.

At the end of the river we were met by Mendez with liquids and food. We were 2 hours into the run and very dehydrated already. The high humidity close to the sea and the hot temperatures had made us loose a lot more liquid than we had planned. We fuelled up and then hit the C332 road that leads to Orgiva. The road started to climb steeply but leveled out after a while and for the first time the group started to fragment. This wasn’t a problem and the village of Orgiva was reached at 11:30. We had made good time but personally I did not feel sharp. After 3 and a half hours into an ultra I would normally expect to feel much better than I did on this hot Spanish night. Maybe I had over trained the previous week, or not fuelled up adequately but probably the unusually high temperatures had caused me to dehydrate sufficiently to affect my performance. Once the humid sea region was left behind, we entered into a very dry desert like atmosphere. Either way it was extremely hot and the mild night time temperatures that we had expected simply did not occur. At least not low down.

The road from Orgiva to Capileira, passing the villages of Pampaneira and Bubión saw a radical change to the run. The road started to climb much more steeply than before forcing us all into a slow plodding jog. The compensation being the height gained rather than the actual distance covered and we started looking at our altimeters as a reference point as to how well we were doing. At this point the group finally split into 2 with one group being faster than the other. I stayed in the slower group. Past experience of making myself extremely ill by forcing my body beyond it’s limits has taught me to listen carefully to what it is saying. The sensations simply weren’t there to go fast and I settled into a slower jog and started to power walk the steeper sections along with 3 of my companions. The great thing of gaining the height though, was that little by little we left the suffocating desert heat behind until at last the temperatures dropped to a comfortable level. This was such a joy and for the first time since we had started out I didn’t feel that I was loosing water faster that I was putting it in. The faster group hit the Capileira village at 4, and we hit it at 5 in the morning.

At this point there was still 11 kilometers to the park boundary and we carried on making steady solid progress. Although physically nothing ached, except for a couple of blisters I felt very, very sleepy. The experience of previous runs through the night however, have taught me that this passes with the coming of dawn and as we reached the park boundary and the first light of day came through the thick pine forest that surrounded our dusty track, my body decided that night time was indeed over and that it was time to wake up again. I felt great and upon reaching the boundary, where Mendez had already gone to sleep we made ourselves some coffee, got some breakfast, changed our road shoes for trail shoes, picked up our rucksacks and set out full of energy with the summit in our sights.

There are 15 kilometers from the park boundary to the summit of Mulhacen with a height gain of some 1500m. None of us were actually running now, but power walking with poles instead, which is by far the most efficient way to move in the mountains. We made rapid progress along the broad south ridge leading to the Mulhacen summit and the rising sun added to the sense of euphoria that seems to accompany me whenever I run though the night to watch the sun rise in the mountains. The first time I was hit by this awe, and perhaps what can only be described as a spiritual experience was in the Alps when doing the Mont Blanc Trail Ultra for the first time. The sun came up, lighting up the glaciers and the big mountains of the Alps. I found myself in one of the most beautiful, spectacular places in the world and life was just great. This time in Sierra Nevada was no different from that time in the Alps, even though I had been here many times before.

When we arrived at the summit, the rest of the group was waiting. We all hugged each other and congratulated each other on the ascent. As it turned out, the faster group had paid a price for speeding up lower down and a couple of the guys had had a difficult time on reaching the summit. The fastest making the summit at 10:20 in the morning. We had arrived at 11: 10, just 40 minutes later, but despite the obvious tiredness I personally felt intact and grateful for not having slipped into competition mode with my friends lower down. Juan Miguel got out his kite and made various attempts at flying it on the summit. This was a source of great amusement but when he eventually got it off the ground we all cheered him enthusiastically. It made a great finish to the climb.

We had run exactly 80 kilometers since we set out the previous evening and climbed a total of 3600 Meters. We started at sea level and finished at the summit of Mulhacen, the highest mountain on mainland Spain. The fastest of our team had taken 14 hours 20 minutes and the slowest 15 hours 11 minutes. All that was left was the descent which we took light heartedly and without rushing.

Logistic support : José Antonio Méndez López del Club Boquerón, Málaga

Athletes: