Hell Dayi, to Vitoria

 09/22/25

Today was not as planned, or expected. Before deciding on this route, we researched other hikers comments and decided it would be pretty easy, after all, non of us planned on conquering the world with some magnificent feat. I think those hikers who post to the open public, write with their egos, because most comments indicated a climb but hey!!no big deal, if I can do it etc etc……you can tell I’m a little ticked off, but I loved the day anyway.

I wish they would be more accurate, today was a ridiculous climb and decent, not that we have not done one before, or couldn’t tomorrow, BUT, we didn’t want to

Anyway, we left town after a good nights rest and hit the road, it was once agin a cool morning and we felt pumped. About 3 miles in we saw this amazing building, architectural giant ahead as we approached the mountains.

CANTABRIAN MOUNTAINS


All of a sudden, a little high pitched voice shouted out, “hey, it opens at 10am and it’s 9.52 right now”  not reallythe person you’d expect to hear that from, especially this time of day,


The YSIOS WINERIES

but, it was the famous YSIOS WINERIES” so breakfast came early. We all shared a flight of their best wines and some tapas before getting back on trail, a great experience.\the winery itself was designed by the famous architect Santiago Calatrava from Spain. He was also responsible for Milwaukee art museum, the Chicago Spire and many more exquisite buildings.



The CANTABRIAN MOUNTAIN RANGE lay directly in front us, and I couldn’t see the way through them with out going over them, this is where the fun started.

We had an almost 3000ft climb straight up on loose soil and rocks, all in about 2.5 miles


Taking a break at the first flat spot



Not having hiked in awhile, I struggled a bit but everyone hung in there..the scenery was spectacular the higher we got, but as we neared to summit hours later, the wind came through the gap like a hurricane






Took a rest at the top then headed back down the other side where the fauna and climate was completely different.

Resting at the summit, hiding from the cold wind


WE continued to descend , the same elevation that we had climbed, but this was harder on my knees as they don’t like the downhills.


Look who’s coming , the stud

Never the less, we stayed the coursed till we caught sight of the village of LAGRAN, this was our target today, 

LAGRAN village

Looking back into the valley

We then headed into town to find a taxi into VITORIA, well, siesta is siesta here and the town was dead, there was one open bar, but they saw Bill coming and closed and locked the door, his reputation mu preceded him.



We just came over that



Approaching LAGRAN

Now we’re stuck, but found out there was a bus at 4.30pm, only 30 minutes away at this point.

We’re are now in VITORIA and had a great Tomahawk steak dinner and wine.’


 Tomorrow we play tourist a bit, then move on to our new night stop






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