At 110 Km Norwest from Madrid you will find the landscape of the book "For whom the bell tolls" from Ernest Hemingway and a perfect location for a hiking adventure.
If I remember well, I read the book "For whom the bell tolls" when I was 18 years old or something like that. At that age I was far from imagining that one day I was going to lead tours there or even to climb to its summit, the Almanzor.
When I read the book I was fascinated by the description of how the earth shacked when we made love with Maria, I admired the strength of Pilar and I could only imagine the mountains landscape in my dreams. One have to realize that back then there was no internet where I could go browse about Gredos, the closest thing I had was the local public library and there was not many books about such a place.
Anyway, this mountain range is like a mini Alpes, it really looks like it but in a much smaller scale. With its snowed granitic needles and its "U" valley one have the sensation of being in much higher mountain.
The highest summit is the Almanzor with 2,592 m (8,504 ft). If you want to know more about the origin of the name Almanzor, please visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almanzor
Sierra de Gredos is a lovely place to go for a walk, both during the winter or summer time.
Although during the winter is usually completely covered with snow, the walk from the parking area called Plataforma until the mountain hut Elola is well marked and there is always quite a lot of people doing it, especially during weekends.
But if you want to climb to the Almanzor summit or similar, you better know what your doing or hire a mountain guide. I can't remember how many time I climbed this summit with clients and quite often we find people in trouble during the way up without proper guidance … please don't do that.
Just the walk until the mountain hut is already a wonderful memory and in the mountain hut you will find something very important: beer :)
Have fun.
David Monteiro
Location: Hoyos del Espino, Spain
Article source: http://www.iberactive.com/2016/01/sierra-de-gredos-spain/
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