San Lorenzo, Sierra de la Demanda, La Rioja

10-07-2013

(Cerro de) San Lorenzo may well be the 20^th most prominent mountain (2262m P1182) in the Iberian peninsula, however, I would suggest it is nowhere near the 20^th most thrilling. This was definitely a mountain where the drive up the unpaved road from El Rio was the source of most excitement.

It is not to say the ski resort mountain is unpleasant or unworthy of its mountain status, it is just that it did not send my pulse racing. There was some quite nice temperature inversion views. And the distant thunder in the Pyrenees was almost continuous – I thought  thunderstorms were an afternoon feature, not early morning

Because I was following my GPS I did not realise that I had driven up the mountain the wrong way. Most people start from Ezcaray – whereas I had driven up the other side with the intention of going to Ezcaray and, by chance, randomly stopped to check my whereabouts at the very point N42.22890 W2.97412 (1964m) where a path leads to the summit, which my GPS told me was only 1.5km away. 

Not quite an arete

Lorenzo litter zone

So I walked up the path, met the main path on the ridge and followed the excessively and unnecessarily copiously bright blue painted rocks to the religiously littered zone of San Lorenzo’s top at N42.24259 W2.97259.

Larry's trig

I varied the return route by sticking to the higher ground rather than the blue painted path.

4.15km, 407m total ascent.

Overnight in the car park of Hotel Ekai, Aoiz, Navarra province - there are grapes there, though.