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Hiking fly-in: Spain 2018, LECD etc

Valencia is definitely nice but fuel price there is pure robbery: I paid over 2.50€ for liter of Jet A1. I will once again check the bill with fuel company when I’m back home but it’s simply horrible – probably the most expensive Jet A1 in the world. Unlike there I paid normal 1.20€ in Cagliari LIEE and a bit higher 1.60€ in Beziers LFMU (which I thought it was too much before I landed to Valencia).

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

We did LESU this weekend for hiking. Very good destination in a wide valley. We payed 35 € for 2 days with the Bonanza. Avgas was available with the BP carnet. Also the hiking was nice and we had excellent food in the hotel nearby (see photos).









EDDS , Germany

Nice Peter.. We all just talk about it, and you just go and do it! Indeed a lovely area. How did you like your “aircraft carrier” style landing at LESU?

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

aart, the landing there is really nice. A spectacular view during the approach. As wind was nearly calm it was easy, but might be more challenging during strong wind times.

EDDS , Germany

This year we were determined to contribute something meaningful to this thread but at least to the letter I must confess we actually failed. I’ll write a little about our adventure anyway, maybe one of the other hikers here can use the information one day.

Our first idea was to fly to Hemavan (ESUT). We had prepared everything and were ready to go. The plan was to celebrate my birthday last Friday of July in Copenhagen and continue to ESUT the next day. From there we intended to commence a four day hike directly from the field. However, on Monday the forecast for the Hemavan area was so terrible that we decided we had to look for something else.

The Pyrenees were forecast to be fine so idea #2 was to fly to La Cerdanya (LECD), take the bus to Andorra and walk back to our Mooney. Again this would take us four days. Forecast was so good that we decided to leave the tent behind and use our bivi bags instead. Birthday dinner in LFBX was appealing as well.

While we were in France the forecast for the eastern Pyrenees deteriorated rapidly. A cold front moved way further south than initially expected. We had a two day buffer in our schedule so we flew to Soria (LEGY) to wait out the bad weather. We called La Cerdanya that we would be late. No problem they said, but during our stay they expected some very bad weather. We checked the forecasts again and in fact we would certainly not be able to complete our planned hike without a tent (and even with it would probably not have been much fun).

We gave up the the idea of a real fly and hike. I checked Picos de Europa but weather wasn’t great either and I couldn’t find a good place to land. What about Sierra Nevada? We would need a rental car for that. None were available in Almería and only very expensive ones in Granada. Murcia (LEMI) was a little further but they had affordable rental cars so that was were we flew to.

LEMI turned out to be a good place: friendly and affordable handling without that we had to insist on the AENA rates. We payed 40€ for a very good and friendly service (plus the AENA fees, of course).

We took the little Fiat we had rented and drove to Laroles in the eastern Sierra Nevada. The next day we commenced our hike, although we cut it short to three days. We took this route and here are a few pictures of or hike.


Along the ridge


Nice dinner


Nice drink


Nice view


We followed this ridge the first two days, now from below


Once again a beautiful place to spend the night

The hike could easily be extended to four or even five days. It’s apparently a remote area. I don’t know if this was also due to COVID, but we didn’t meet a single soul in these three days. Water is a bit scarce higher up and it might be easier to do this hike earlier in the year, especially if you intend to extend it. Finding a place to pitch a tent might be a bit difficult, bivi bags probably suit this better.

Back at LEMI our handling agent again was very friendly but she informed us, that due to COVID a new procedure had to be followed to get us to our Mooney. It was incredibly complicated and involved a drive in the company’s minibus to a gate far away from the terminal. There we could be security checked which included a thorough inspection of the minibus. After that we were driven back to the terminal this time on the airside. It would have been an easy walk of less then a hundred meters if we would have just left the terminal on the airside but I came to the conclusion that they do all this to confuse the virus and prevent further infections this way. While it’s somewhat questionable if this strategy will kill off the pandemic, it will kill of GA for sure.

Last Edited by terbang at 09 Aug 20:02
EDFM (Mannheim), Germany

It looks like a lovely trip! Lovely landscape.

I enjoy some wild camping, but always use a tent. When I lay down to go to sleep, I want to know that bugs aren’t going to get near me while I sleep!

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Looks amazing!

We never did that (cancelled) trip to LECD. Instead we had a little (but very pleasant) meet-up at La Rochelle; April 2018. We ought to put this trip back on the list – as soon as this virus business is sorted. Actually Spain is pretty well open already, and there won’t be many tourists. @aart, what do you think?

Do those bags have a mesh so bugs don’t get you?

You just knew I was going to say this but any chance of some reports for the airports for our database?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Amazing trip.
Thank you, I hope to see this one day.

LFOU, France

@terbang great trip, thanks for sharing this! That is exactly what my wife and I are hoping to do anytime soon again..

Germany

Nice trip, thanks for posting! LEGY is a convenient little airport, isn’t it?

We never did that (cancelled) trip to LECD. Instead we had a little (but very pleasant) meet-up at La Rochelle; April 2018. We ought to put this trip back on the list – as soon as this virus business is sorted. Actually Spain is pretty well open already, and there won’t be many tourists. @aart, what do you think?

Yes, we could give this another try. I think meteo-wise (both for hiking and flying) mid sept through end of october would be best. Lots of hotel vacancies.

Private field, Mallorca, Spain
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