Picos Diary

Expedition to the Bay of Biscay and Picos de Europa

1990-11-27T04:54:00.000-08:00

Over the months of October and November 2009, artists Chris Wallbank and Shenaz Khimji travelled across the bay of Biscay and the Picos de Europa mountain range in Northern Spain. Sponsored by the SWLA Society of Wildlife Artists, bursary scheme this expedition aimed to traverse the extremes of depth and altitude that characterise Northern Spain and its wildlife. This blog documents their discoveries using extracts from Chris Wallbank’s journal and the artists’ sketchbooks. Click on images to open in a larger window

Thursday 8.10.09 Crossing the Bay of Biscay

1989-10-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

Our ferry the Pont Aven is heavily delayed. This positions us favourably in the Bay of Biscay and fast approaching proven whale watching territory by first light.

We leave our cabin at 7.am and choose a post forward on the top deck. It is not long before our first sighting; a pod of 6 to 8 common dolphins exploding out of the turbulent sea 300m ahead, racing to meet the ships bows. In a second the dolphins are upon us attempting to bow ride, but with the ship reaching 20 to 24 kn, near top speed, they roll under or along the hull and are quickly left biting at our wake. A larger pod (15 to 20) foraging in the same area approach from port and I'm ready to run aft in time to see a mass of planing dorsal fins casually sinking out of sight. After this initial sighting the day is plagued by high winds, squally showers and a sea state of mainly 4 or 5, making observations difficult.
A break in the weather at 11 a.m. somewhere over the Torrelavega Canyon (3944m in depth) allowed me to glimpse three enormous blows bending backwards in the wind. The shallow angle of its trajectory suggests to me a possible sperm whale blow (as opposed to straight up blow of most rorquals), but with so much distortion from the wind it is impossible to be certain.
The whale blows I have seen in my short career watching have always first appeared distant, small and silent. I wouldn’t go as far as to say they are vague but they always leave me wondering what fluke led my eyes to fall on them? It seems unjust that the biggest animals in the world live in the environment with the widest horizons and no fixed reference of scale. Even a 40 tonne sperm whale can be dwarfed by the illusion of an ocean rolling endlessly towards the horizon. This instance was no exception as merging sea and sky added to my disorientating struggle to contextualise the wispy blow. However, even with the roughest calculation of distance and scale I am soon bristling with the inevitable awe that accompanies any whale sighting. I am looking (through binoculars, but even so) at a mammal that lies roughly between me and the horizon as I see it. That’s about two kilometres between us, and yet I can see the water it projects skyward through the force of its lungs, there is even a cloud of vapour momentarily hanging on the wind. Although its body is obscured, somewhere where I am looking is an animal so big I can effectively see its breath from 2 km away. Whenever I remember the whale blows I have seen, they don’t appear as quiet ‘blink and you miss them’ wisps on the horizon but noisy clouds of explosive water that linger in the air as they expand and dissipate above lurching black bulks.

This particular whale did not surface again before the ship had passed so we never got a clear ID of the species. But for me the confirmation I get from seeing a blow, to witness first hand the presence of such a colossal animal living in an environment that’s practically alien is what really gets my blood racing.
We think this is our last sighting, but as a final surprise, a fanfare of twisting and tumbling bottlenose dolphins meet us as we make the last turns into the sheltered bay of Santander.

Road to Arenas De Cabrales

After a few pinchos in Santander we catch a bus two hours to Pannes, passing from maritime suburbs to farmland. Plastic bags drowned in boggy verges or snagged in bushes, line this busy road out of the city, though some turn out to be brilliant white cattle egrets delicately picking through the debris.

The highway steadily climbs into a more mountainous landscape. However at one town called San Vicente, we meet the sea again as it infiltrates rolling green hills capped with medieval fortifications. At this point we are treated to our first and very spectacular glimpse of the Picos as the clouds break and shards of shattered sunlight define the jagged outline of the great massifs beyond San Vicente’s glistening lagoons.
It is evening by the time we reach Pannes and find a taxi to take us the last leg of our journey to Arenas. The road from here negotiates a landscape of pinnacles, domes, spires, cliffs and other limestone obstacles as it chases the river Cares through a narrowing gorge.
Our taxi driver negotiates this twisting road with a worrying lack of belief in driving while your talking; lifting his hands off the wheel and turning to look me in the eye whenever we passed something he thought I should know about. I probably exacerbate the situation further by only half listening to him as I become clearly more distracted at every corner of the deepening gorge and ever more fantastical limestone formations are revealed. With no real measure of perspective or distance save for a fading of the limestone from white to blue towards the horizon, I find myself in a landscape illusion reminiscent of an early renaissance painting. It is as if we are wending our way through Andrea Mantegna or Giovvani di Paolo’s tempura hilltops. Gradually the gorge opens up enough that beech trees have found room to grow below the stubby cliff top bonsais. In turn woodland is replaced by pasture and eventually a scattering of houses marking the boundary of Arenas De Cabrales where we find our campsite (Camping Naranja de Bulnes).

Friday 9.10.09 Arenas de Cabrales

1988-10-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

Even before we unzipped our tent this morning the light melody of grazing cow bells punctuated with the intermittent snare of falling chestnuts had set the alpine tone of our surroundings.

Our campsite is in a grove of horse chestnut trees overlooking a short span of valley peppered with orange beech wood and gnarled altitude loving oaks. But it is the single blunt dome of limestone that dominates our view. Griffon vultures drift through the thickening air as midday approaches, without exception they are drawn like satellites to this imposing lunar peak. I count eighteen, though some are lost from sight down the back of the mountain, whilst others crick their wings and dive earth bound, their shadows throwing ghoulish shapes against the cliff face.
We watch and paint throughout the day and occasional village wanderers stoop to collect chestnuts from around our feet without the slightest interest in our work or attempts at small talk.

Cabeza Turruecu by Shenaz Khimji

Saturday 10.10.09 Torbina (1317m)

1987-11-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

The first major climb in our itinerary, Torbina stands between the coast and the Picos range and should therefore offer good views of both… or so the theory goes.

After a walk up 4kms of asphalt hairpins to the hamlet of Arranga, it is a steep scramble through scrubby rock gardens before we find ourselves painfully wading up heather slopes towards sheer walls of limestone. The sun is hot and we are at all times accompanied either by powder blue, acid yellow or tortoiseshell butterflies.
The path eventually reappears near friendly goats, where it zigzags up a cliff pass for one hour. By this time the weather has degraded, reducing visibility to seven or eight metres. Not wanting to be beaten so close to the summit, we make a mad scramble up into the mist to successfully find an unceremonious cairn marking the highest peak (although only by using an altimeter can we be sure this is the summit).
We never see the impressive panoramas that the map promises. On our way back however, the cloud breaks to offer tantalizing views of peaks and valleys snared in mist (pictured in the sketch below). Stop for a beer in Arranga, which later becomes a free lift down the road to Arenas!

Sunday 11.10.09 Arenas De Cabrales

1986-11-28T05:39:00.000-08:00

Painting griffon vultures orbiting the dome shaped peak of Cabeza Turruecu (922m)

Monday 12.10.09 Bulnes

1985-11-28T05:45:00.000-08:00

Old Bules by Shenaz Khimji

Bulnes is a cluster of terracotta tiled houses nestled in the head of a steep sided valley. Although the entire settlement predates the Roman period, the first cluster of barns and houses we reach is called new Bulnes and is separated from old Bulnes by a 500m path that doubles back towards the centre of the valley.

Old Bulnes is perched on a rocky outcrop that commands a 360° view of its encompassing mountains. From here we can see all the way down the neck of the funnel shaped valley to the main road we set off from three hours previously. Only accessible by foot, the path through this valley was until recently the main route into Bulnes. Now a funicular railway, opened in 2004, provides Bulnes with a more rapid link to the outside world, much to the delight of its small population but condemnation of conservationists who want to see the traditional mountain way of life preserved.

Apart from the tasteful cafes and small hotel that caters for the handfuls of tourists arriving each day on the funicular, there is little to suggest that the rural character of Bulnes has undergone much change. The houses are ancient and each one roofed with the customary terracotta tiles. They are still shared with livestock, and outside wood smoke mingles with the smell of manure. Cattle walk shoulder to shoulder with people down cobbled streets and goats were penned into one corner of the main plaza.
There is something unsettling about Bulnes however, which we soon put down to an absence of youngsters. Children who have grown up here board during the week at the local school in Arenas. Usually they return at weekends but it is unlikely many will ever return to settle. One couple in their 90s tell how their children travel from the city each autumn to drive the goats down from summer pastures they cannot themselves reach.
We are staying in the village Auberge, basically the upper storey of a barn with mattresses on the floor. At 6 p.m. the last funicular of the day leaves and we smugly enjoy the idyllic village under a starry sky all to ourselves. We are blissfully unaware however, that the cafes will not open again until the first load of day trippers arrive late tomorrow morning, until which time we will have to rely on our meagre rations. Rations which are being diminished further by the Auberge’s resident mice, as we romantically gaze at the stars.

Tuesday 13.10.09 Bulnes

1984-11-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

We have been introduced to some of the mountain birds and spend the day drawing them. Rock buntings, serins, yellowhammers, grey wagtails, chiffchaffs and griffon vultures are all easy to see. However, my attention is mostly focused on the black redstarts that flit and fidget amongst the tiled roofs. These birds seem to favour this terracotta scree over their more natural mountainside habitat. Baring in mind its willingness to adopt urban habitats, I find myself drawn to the black redstart as an emblem of Bulnes’s precarious position on a boundary between the wild and habituated, past and present worlds.

At the end of the day we make arrangements to eat after hours with one of the cafe proprietors, Rafa, a relationship which over the next few days proves invaluable not only because his willingness to feed us allows us to stay longer in Bulnes but because his knowledge of the mountains determines our next steps towards crossing the Picos.

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Wednesday 14.10.09 Bulnes

1983-11-28T06:05:00.000-08:00

This morning we walked into an impressive rock garden at the foot of the Cambureru Canal. However, most of our time is spent exploring the mountain town and in the early afternoon we take up a commanding position in old Bulnes overlooking the valley. The imposing peak of Castu Colluges to the west, stained in streaks of orange and blue minerals and echoing with the raucous cry of Alpine choughs is on our left. The massive bulk of Cabeza la Mesa’s sheer South face on the opposite side of the valley fills our forward vision. It is across this smooth rock curtain that I watch for the bold shadows of vultures before pinpointing the real things, which in turn lead my eye to guano stained ledges where I can study the perched and squabbling birds through a fieldscope.

Thursday 15.10.09 Bulnes

1982-11-28T06:19:00.000-08:00

Spend the day painting rooftop and redstarts from vantage point in goat meadow. But I am struggling to find the right composition juxtaposing rooftop, redstart and cliff face.

Friday 16.10.09 Cares Gorge

1981-11-28T06:23:00.000-08:00

Shenaz Khimji

Early start from Bulnes, made easier by kind ladies’ donation of two tickets for the funicular. With this unexpected head start we soon find ourselves at the neck of the Cares Gorge picking wild figs for breakfast. The path is carved into the cliff face high above the Rio Cares. It follows close to a hydroelectric canal, which it was originally intended to service. Ridges and spires topped with bonsai jut into the narrow landscape like petrified trees fighting for precious canopy space. Wall lizards sun themselves on Stalactites now exposed to the sun’s rays after millions of years of formation and further countless years of erosion in the dark. Butterflies glide below vultures in the busy ravine and we even glimpse the blur of a narrow bordered bee hawk attracted to my blue fleece. After 12 km, our admiration of the gorge is being tested by the strain of our full packs and the relentless beating of the sun on our backs. Finally, we pass through a series of man-made tunnels before reaching the hydro electric damn that marks the end of the gorge and our passage into the southern range of the Picos.

Saturday 17.10.09 Valdeon to Altos De Valdeon (1700m)

1980-11-28T06:33:00.000-08:00

A single peak called Altos De Valdeon now stands between us and our next planned base at Fuente De in the South. This proves to be the hardest trek yet with steep passes, arid waterless features and baking sun. It is also an interesting climb, one that illustrates the transition of habitats in correlation with gaining altitude as we pass from meadows to beech-wood and above that, dry scrub. We camp at 1603m (rough camping below 1600m is prohibited) when we cannot take a step further. Dusk is clear and freezing but made warmer by a miniature bottle of port and a sunset, which stains the crumbling ridge above us orange before picking out the distant silhouettes of the Western Picos against a blaze of purple.

Sunday 18.10.09 Altos De Valdeon

1979-11-28T06:39:00.000-08:00

A cold night followed by an arid hot day in the scrub attempting to paint. Cracked and bleeding lips have been burnt, frozen and dried. The small spring nearby can only dribble at a torturous rate. Paint dries instantly on paper to poor affect. The scrubby bushes teaming with lizards and crickets that I half hoped would also support a shrike seem completely void of any birdlife. Dejected, we eat our last cuppa soup and set off by 4 p.m. to complete our 4 hour hike to Fuente De.
The onward path is lined with bilberry bushes and I can’t remember tasting anything as good as those sugary bursts of liquid. They give us the boost we need to make the last push over the summit of Altos De Valdeon.

Our final long descent to Fuente De is accompanied in part by horses being driven down from summer pastures; their thundering hooves kicking up dry dust behind us set the pace. After a beer at the hotel we crash at the refuge. We have crossed the Picos on foot!!!!

Torre del friero from Altos de Valdeon, Shenaz Khimji

Monday 19.10.09 Espinama

1978-11-28T06:46:00.000-08:00

Move from Fuente De 3.5 km to Espinama where we make some friends, including Jose whose family runs the albergue we will treat as our base for the next few days.

Tuesday 20.10.09 Espinama Forest

1977-11-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

Espinama is submerged in a densely wooded valley of beech and oak. It is blustery and wet today so we head for the woods in hope of finding a sheltered walk. The main focus at the start of our walk is a view of the enormous amphitheatre of rock that shadows the Northern end of the valley around Fuente De. The forest itself reveals: chaffinch, marsh tit, blackcap, great spotted, possible black woodpecker and a pair of red deer.
Later that night Jose fetches us to witness the strange sight of a red deer stag, a five pointer, stubbornly standing in the river while two park guards bang rocks and crack sticks around it in an attempt to drive it back into the forest. It is uncomfortable to watch this regal animal so indignantly treated as the guards resort to physically pushing it back through the undergrowth. After the two guards have disappeared with the stag into the forest gloom, Jose shows us photos of an equally magnificent animal that had wondered into the town and stood outside his door the previous year. The morning after these photos were taken, he tells us, the stag’s decapitated body was found in the river, its head plundered as a trophy.

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Wednesday 21.10.09 El Cable & Hoyo de Lloroza (1834)

1976-11-28T07:01:00.000-08:00

It is a 3.5km walk up to Fuente de, and the bottom teleferique station (1078m). This cable car takes us a further 800 vertical meters in three minutes. At the top we take a photo in front of the breathe taking view, then follow a path away from the mirador and the vertiginous excitement of snappers and their cliques teetering at the edge of its plumb drop.

Within minutes we find ourselves in a back country of astral plains and craters, strewn with the glacial debris of an ice age it seems we could have only just missed. Rounded peaks, knife edge ridges and cliffs eroded to form rocky minarets of gothic proportions surround us like the fingers of a cupped hand. The Hoyo de Lloroza, a circular depression caused by karstification, is the vast palm of this landscape, its surface prune like and weather beaten. Waves and lines score the surface of every great slab of rock, channels from a lifetime of caustic erosion that read like the mountains fortune and future. Carpets of green grass grow dense and thick within hollows between the grey.
At midday we stop in a boulder field beneath a small cliff reputed to be a wallcreeper hotspot. We have no luck seeing this crimson winged ‘hoopoe of the rocks’, only an Alpine accentor disappearing into the labyrinth of miniature passages and caverns between the boulders.
Taking a fork to the left, an old mining track that skirts around and above the Hoyo, I catch a flash of a rebeco’s (chamois) white rump as it bounds across our path and, to my astonishment, gung ho off the cliff edge. There is no chance of following so we peer down into the Hoyo and none to hopefully scan the maze of rock and scree, all the time looking further and further a field. Then, in a pocket of green far away in the deepest convex of the Hoyo, Shenaz spots something. Through squinting eyes and binoculars shaded from drifting sleet, I could just make out the delicate pin legged silhouettes of grazing undulates far below us.
Through a telescope we could see more clearly the taupe patterned bodies of rebecos. When these goat like antelope lift their heads, as they did frequently to scan for danger or simply to check what their neighbour was eating (clear grazing hierarchy within the group), we were able to make out bold streaks of white black and gold geometric markings across the head, neck and nape of each animal. This facial war paint could have looked fearsome on many animals but rebecos with their thin questioning lips, doleful eyes, manicured antlers, podgy midriff balanced on matchstick legs and teetering on dainty high hooves are camp looking creatures. On the other hand, when the wind gets icy and the sleet turns to thick clods of snow, it is us, not the rebecos, who wimp out and head back to the mirador café for a nice espresso latte.

Later we track the rebecos a little closer into the hoyo until fierce blizzards send us packing.

Friday 23.10.09 El Cable

1975-11-28T07:13:00.000-08:00

Today, the partially roofed veranda of a boarded up cabin near the cable car acts as a temporary studio for us. With some protection I can see the bad weather in a new light and enjoy trying to capture the fading and reappearing peaks, even when low driving rain eventually gets the better of my attempts.
After drying off in the café, I make another painting which the rain destroys and I abandon at around 4 p.m. when I see a huge gregarious flock of Alpine choughs wheeling around a peak called Aguas de Tajahierro. I quickly try to capture the movement of the black mass of wings fading in and out of obscurity as they swirl around the white shrouded peaks. Their movement is poetic symmetry within a monochrome landscape, a living sansuiga painting of minimal brush work; ephemeral, fluid, fluxing, rich, barren and dynamic.
We Descend 3 hours via Puertos Aliva and find a nocturnal fire salamander amongst a pool of frogs milling underneath a cattle grid.

Pena Vieja, Shenaz Khimji

Saturday 24.10.09 El Cable

1974-11-28T08:15:00.000-08:00

Another day in our El Cable studio. This morning we have a clear view to the bottom of the valley. A conveyor belt of cloud clings to the opposite hilltops, above it a brilliant blue sky and beneath, rich earthy tones of beech trees turning. This remarkable division created by the band of cloud appeared at eye level, giving me the sense of being able to peer into a world of altitude above and depth below. This sense of altitude becomes the impetus behind the day’s painting.

We ascend the ‘quick way’ in pouring rain, down Canal de la Jenduda; a canal being a gully. This is the only walk-able route to break through the sheer amphitheatre shaped rock face separating El Cable from Fuente De. Needless to say it is steep, almost vertical, added to which quickly falling mist sends our approach slightly off-track so that we find ourselves having to scale a modest cliff that makes up one side of the canal. The gully was steep, but scree and mud allowed us to dig our heals in and edge down easy enough, but if we had to climb up again it would have been a very different story. I was praying I had read the map correctly and not taken us down one of any of the other gullies, all of which emerge above sheer cliffs.
This mini adventure however, was rewarded with a fantastic find; a black, bright red bellied salamander (I cannot find example anywhere, possibly it is a variation of fire salamander or Alpine newt?) scrambling blindly over fine scree and pebbles which would occasionally dislodge sending him cart-wheeling further down the gully.
It turns out the quick way down is not so quick and we arrive home in the dark, soaking wet but happy to have seen such an incredible creature and survived its dank, gloomy environment.

Sunday 25.10.09 Espinama

1973-11-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

Today it feels as if a change in the weather is coming. As the rain begins to clear and Pena Remona appears in an aperture of clear sky, sunlight sets the wet autumn colours ablaze in the valley. Vultures drift overhead completing the scene.

Monday 26.10.09 Aguas de Tajahierro

1972-11-28T08:29:00.000-08:00

As I hoped, the weather is clear and sunny when we arrive at the top of the teleferique. Inspired to paint Alpine choughs, I Work on a large sketch of Aguas de Tajahierro, a peak these birds seem drawn to. In the sharp autumn sunlight Tajahierro is a very different mountain from the misty spectre of just the other day. Light defines its solid bulk, an earthy ochre block that stands apart from the other mountains circling the hoyo. Minarets of twisted gothic spires add depth and intrigue to the cliff face as more and more are made apparent by the black choughs shuttling back and forth between them.
Whilst painting, snow finches whoosh past, Shenaz draws a young rebeco through scope and is interrupted by a snow vole. Return the long way over Puertos Aliva, a pleasant walk through an open tundra like plain. Here we pass chalet real, a tin roofed hunting lodge once used by the Spanish royal family. Now rebecos relax unchallenged around its deserted walls.

Wednesday 28.10.09 Aguas de Tajahierro

1971-11-28T08:34:00.000-08:00

More chough studies, Shenaz has to hold my drawing board to stop it blowing off as I finish the painting of Tajahierro. Walk home via Puertos Aliva.

Thursday 29.10.09 El Cable

1970-11-28T08:37:00.000-08:00

Tracked Hoyo de Lloroza rebecos. Herd of 20 or so females and juveniles including some very young (not weaned). Some graze in the meadows, but many seem to prefer plucking growth from hard to reach cracks and hollows in the limestone cliffs. No rock face seems to overcome the agile rebecos as the herd casually and methodically drifts further up the mountainside. By midday the main group is out of sight and I have finished my painting of a juvenile poised on a ledge of rippled limestone, smooth and polished like ice. We sit back and watch a male that had been lingering in the background give chase to a female that has become separated from the main herd. The chase is frantic at first as the two tare down rocky ledges sending clods of turf tumbling down before them. Then the female, at a safe distance begins to act nonchalant, casually plucking at tufts until the male shakes himself, cocks his tail, bellows and begins to prance towards her. She runs to a safe distance again, lowers her head to graze in another façade of coolness. This chase continues until eventually the male folds his shins under himself to lie down and the female does the same several teasing meters away. I think from the look in his eye he’s prepared to wait all day.

We on the other hand have to start the long walk home through Puertos de Aliva. On the way we take a detour to Covarrobes (1964m) and inspect a nursery of rebecos (9 juveniles and a couple of females with calves). There is another large herd near Chalet Real, again mainly females and infants with the odd male lingering on the fringes. The alarm is raised (snorting cough like sheep) when we approach, sending many of the stragglers running for the safety of the herd. The rebecos then move very gradually away from us, all the time grazing so as to give the impression that they are not threatened by us.

Torre de Altaiz by Shenaz Khimji

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Friday 30.10.09 Espinama

1970-11-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

Espinama by Shenaz Khimji

There is an incredible old complex of barns near our albergue and also several singing black redstarts in the vicinity. I decide to make a second attempt at the composition of the roof and redstart I first thought of in Bulnes. This time, learning from my mistakes I focus on a smaller detail in the landscape but one which has several dynamic lines and a greater sense of depth. We paint all afternoon, Shenaz painting the whole scene of the barn and myself the detail through a fieldscope. Many of the neighbours visit us bringing apples from there gardens or walnuts from the trees around the allotments. One man in his 80’s unlocks a door to what we thought was a normal house in the village centre, to reveal a harvest festival of wild nuts, oranges, apricots, potatoes, onions and in a separate room, chickens. Looking around, we see that many of the houses in the village are being used to store bales of hay (straw poking out the windows) and later on we even see another being used to keep cattle, two men struggling to squeeze a stroppy heifer through the front door.
Jose explains to us later, when passing by to give us a wild boar sausage he made himself (he shot the boar too), that the reason many local families have 2 or 3 properties in the village, as well as a cabana in the mountains, is because they have accumulated their relatives homes overtime as inheritance. No one really sells the houses because, he says, they are not worth much and as in Bulnes, many youngsters don’t want to stick around. Of course tourism and the nearby teleferique are seen as a positive thing, we are certainly being made welcome and people are very content in their close knit community.

As the evening draws in, wood smoke fills the streets and the black redstarts begin singing. I manage to make some studies of a magnificent fresh coloured male which I will be able to add to the roof composition later on.

Saturday 31.10.09 Espinama - Collada Jermoso (2109m)

1970-11-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

This morning, Shenaz and I stood at the foot of what will always be remembered in our minds as the zigzag of doom; an interminable mule track winding its way 800 vertical metres through a pass between towering rock faces. Three hours and 38 gruelling hairpin bends later, we make it into the shade of Pena Remona where the path flattens out and crosses by several abandoned mineral mines. On rounding the apex of our first ascent, the arid boulder strewn landscape of the morning is replaced by a lush green vega.
This vega, Vega de Liordes is a vast sunken plain. Lazily meandering streams coagulate in peaty pools at its centre. The boggy earth around them is saturated with tufts of ochre grass that gradually intensifies in colour as it radiates over the plain and transforms to a deep emerald green on the outer slopes. Two lone rebecos can be seen grazing a kilometre or so apart, one near the pools and one on the green fringes. The vega is encircled by dark grey mountains, the tallest (Torre del Hoyo de Liordes 2474m) is cupped so that the deepest centre of its palm, where the sun has not reached all year, cradles a dirty patch of ancient snow. Another tiny fleck of white, nestled far below in the Western corner of the vega turns out to be a shepherd’s cabin. We head for a pass North of this cabin, leaving the vega at our backs but still marvelling at having seen an arctic tundra oasis suspended 2000m above the balmy Spanish coast.
The path begins to hug the contours of Pico de la Padiornia and the ground to our left drops away until we are walking along a cliff ledge.
Rebecos peer down from various ledges above, monitoring us as if this was the Congo and we are Captain Marlow in the Heart of Darkness; their painted faces appearing only to melt away again, into the rocky cover. Eventually, we break through the cliffs to our right and into a col full of grazing rebecos, lining the paths and the outlying ridges. It is as if we have stumbled upon a lost tribe. Dozens of unblinking eyes follow us as we make our way up the path, passing within feet of the herd. To our surprise very few move in fear. The big ones even seem cocky, eyeing us up as they chew on their fodder like thoughtful cowboys. I half expect to hear the ping of grassy mulch hitting a spittoon at any moment, it’s that silent.

On the other side of the col, the sun is drifting below a haze of blue in a corrugated landscape. To our right we can see our destination, the Collado Jermoso Refugio. A green roofed cabin perched on a grassy spine that juts like a headland into the deep sea of space between the Cares Gorge and the Western Massif behind it.
The refugio warden is sitting on the roof fixing a weather vane when we finely drag ourselves up to the door. We ask if he has any room and of course he can’t resist saying, ‘sorry full up’ before pointing us to a hatch in the ceiling with a grin on his face. Up in the attic of the old cabin we find mattresses and blankets, whilst a room below has a place were we can eat our yesterday’s pasta.

Sunday 1.11.09 Jermoso

1970-11-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

I have one day to paint here before we leave or risk getting snowed in. There is so much here, it is hard to choose what to study. First thing, I paint the Western massif with Jermoso in the foreground, whilst all the time thick brown cloud builds against the peaks. By afternoon the clouds have breached the high peaks and sunk towards the valleys to form a leaden roof. From the West however, sunlight is seeping under the cloud to light the wooded valleys ablaze with rich autumnal colours. This phenomenon is topped by the small herd of rebecos (females and juvs) that wonder into the frame before progressing down into the valley below us. Perhaps they were seeking a more sheltered altitude, a premonition of the storm that now soaked us. Back at the refugio, the wardens are also preparing to evacuate themselves after 6 months on the mountain. Winter is coming and we will be the first to see it.

Collado Jermoso by Shenaz Khimji

Monday 2.11.09 Jermoso and Vega de Liordes

1970-11-24T09:31:00.000-08:00

I lie in bed and stare up at the skylight trying to work out what the blurry film covering it is. All of a sudden I’m hit by a wave of panic and excitement, it’s snow! I'm panicking because there is the matter of getting off the mountain, but it’s exciting because right now we’re sheltered 2000 m up, I have my paints and I can’t wait to see the wintry transformation outside.

I go down the ladder and enter a world in monochrome. The black weeping rock face fades in and out as the mute clouds blow through. Each time I see a different part of the mountain appear in a different form as if this solid barrier of rock is now as viscous as the mist that obscures it. Distant sunlight breaks through the valleys and whole sides of the mountain glisten in silver strands as light catches the veins of icy limestone.
I sketch the cliffs and gorge and also focus on a drawing of snow finches passing a memorial to lost mountaineers. Once I finish, we wave goodbye and step precariously on to the crunchy snow. After a while the clouds lift a little and we find it's not too bad underfoot. Nevertheless I breathe a sigh of relief when we make it down from the cliff path and back onto the Vega de Liordes.

We had stopped to take in the beautiful transformation of the peaks around the Vega, when a male rebeco canters into the col just below us. He is clearly agitated as he shakes his body, making the bristly hair on his nape and rump stand up. He trots on a few paces and stops to raise his head and let out a straining bellow, his blue tongue visibly resonating in the ‘O’ shaped cavity of his trumpeting mouth. I notice his magnificent black and lemon yellow pelage as he tenses his stocky neck, stiffens his tail and faces us with another bellow (like a red deer only higher in pitch). Thinking better of it, he trots on and proceeds to perform an elaborate dressage that takes him far away across the vega before he begins back in our direction.
Apparently fearless, he now stops within metres of us and bellows again. It seems he is interested in one of us, I remark turning to Shenaz, after all it is rutting season. That little wise crack becomes less hilarious as he advances towards us. Genuinely concerned now, I am startled by a sneezing bark coming from behind. We turn in the direction of the noise to see a gentle caravan of around 30 female and juvenile rebecos appearing from below the cliff at our backs.
Obviously more interested in them, the male flanks us and clatters up the scree towards the harem. He approaches the female whose call seemed to invite his advances. However, it is her who comes too close causing the strutting macho to recoil in surprise. After this the male rebeco rampages through the herd, shaking and bellowing, he seems deranged, though I believe his method is to try and segregate a potential mate from the group just as a predator would single out a potential meal. Eventually we lose sight of the mayhem as the chase takes to the high cliffs.
From Vega de Liordes the route home was straightforward, we pass the mines pausing to look at off cuts of crystal, then follow the zigzag of doom to below the snowline and back to Espinama.

Friday 6.11.09 Santander and Altamira

1970-11-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Our arrival into Santander yesterday has coincided with a colossal Atlantic weather system. Up and down the Northern coast the country is being hammered by ten metre swells, winds up to 100km in strength and heavy flooding. We decide to go underground and catch a bus to one of the most famous cave art sites in the world, Altamira.
Picasso famously stated that, ‘after Altamira everything is decadence’. Sadly but necessarily the original caves are closed to visitors. However, we are treated to a very accurate reconstruction of the famous gallery of buffalo. What struck me most about these paintings was how accurate the drawings were and that this was not just because of the artists’ skill but also their absolute knowledge and understanding of the animal subjects. Successfully understanding and depicting the anatomy, movement, behaviour and perhaps most importantly the jizz of an animal as these artists inherently did, evokes an essence or spirit of nature that I have come to see as the most accurate or real ingredient in a wildlife painting, no matter how or when it is rendered.
What I think Picasso meant about art after Altamira is that whilst context has moved on, the function of art has not changed since these first ochre sketches. Cave paintings transform rock into something the artist and his society values, so the artist/hunter evokes the wildlife that sustains his people or perhaps represented fertility beliefs.
Today our values may be different but the inherent function of art to evoke nature, whether as a reflection of the external environment or our own internal nature has not changed. Most important of all, when art succeeds it does so because it brings real sensations into existence, in exactly the same way that painting animals onto rock would, for our ancestors at Altamira, bring those animals to life.

Saturday 7.11.09 Santander Coast

1970-11-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

I’m determined to take on the weather today and make it to the coast. We head for Cabo Minor and Cabo Mayor, two headlands that are well known for seabird watching. We do not see the huge numbers of passage birds this coast is renowned for but a break in the rain allows us to paint and spot several species including; Manx shearwater, great skua, kittiwake, widgeon, auks, gannet.

Sunday 8.11.09 Monte Castillo

1970-11-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

Monte Castillo is a small unassuming, conical shaped hill bristling with bolding patches of conifer made messy by recent forestry work. In short it is no picture postcard. However, the subterranean world at the heart of this hill tells a very different story.
The narrow cave entrance of Monte Castillo opens into a vast cavern and I am immediately struck by its warmth, of temperature yes, but also colour and texture. The architecture is a natural opulence of domed ceilings, high walls and annexes. The interior is lavishly furnished with limestone cascades, columns and cornicing of gothic and rococo like grandeur. Throughout, the surfaces are marbled with ribbons of mineral deposits that unravel around the cave system like a natural fresco celebrating the patience of earth’s geology. In short, this is not a hovel that prehistoric man endured but a place to be celebrated like a palace or cathedral. Judging from the next chambers we see, it clearly was.
Our guide directs us with her torch picking out antlers, hooves and hind legs as charcoal drawn deer and buffalo gallop across the cave walls in front of us. Fleeting glimpses as the torchlight travels over the rocky landscape. At one point the beam falls on a forest of hand patterns stencilled on the wall using a primitive airbrush, these are 28 000 years old. The outline of a buffalo grazes amongst them, this is figurative art painted on later, around 18 – 12000 years ago, and below that in the same annex is a latticed bow pattern, abstract imagery from 10000 years ago. So illuminated within the same beam of torch light I am looking at different stages of art history from a period spanning 18000 years. The tour of this particular cave system ends in a tunnel decorated with a long trail of red discs. Like a landing strip, this ‘runway’ of discs is thought to be a kind of signage guiding people or perhaps spirits into the caves.
We finish the day with a tour of Los Monidas, known to be inhabited at a later time because its paintings do not depict the warm climate animals seen in the first cave but reindeer and horses which were present during a more recent period of cold around 16-10000 yrs ago. These drawings are all concentrated in one small, hard to reach cavern that suggests some kind of sanctuary. Most are drawn in black charcoal or mineral with an incredibly delicate line. Always, a portion of rock is chosen because something about its form suggests a part of anatomy or posture, hence the theory of evoking something out of nothing or making the rock come alive. One thing I do not agree with is a statement made, that these artists never depicted the landscape, but I see many examples where the presence of the drawings create space and depth out of the surrounding rocks. Why should the cave painters not be aware of this too?

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Monday 9.11.09Santander

1970-11-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

Santander bay, Shenaz Khimji

Its our final morning and we head to Cabo Minor for more seabird watching. The birds come in greater numbers today and it is an especially good day for spotting skua. However, the strong winds force me to draw on the sheltered bay side of the headland. As we draw, our return ferry the Bretagne can be seen arriving from the north, her hull occasionally vanishing into the trough of a wave, she looks fatigued.
As the Bretagne negotiates the channel through my sketch, we pack up and head home in time to board her later on tonight.

Tuesday 10.11.09 Bay of Biscay

1970-11-18T09:59:00.000-08:00

When we wake at 6:45, the ship is somewhere just South of the Ouessant. At breakfast we are joined by common dolphins outside the window. It’s a large pod, present over a 5 mile transect or for about as long as it takes me to eat a fry up (two of everything). We run into a fellow whale watcher. We met whilst marine mammal surveying on this same route earlier in the year. He is bit of an expert and explains how the dolphins will be calculating at which point of the ships course they can head her off. This is easier to witness in calm waters when it is possible to see dolphins from all directions and distances converge on a single point, the ships hull. So they can not only use sonar to calculate the ships location, but also its speed and direction of movement in order to predict where they will meet it; all from underwater several kilometres away. For me this is an insight into what adept and intelligent hunters dolphins must be. Later, during his survey from the bridge, our friend witnesses a single gannet dive on a food source, which is joined by a dolphin and then a pod and then more and more small pods arriving from further a field to spark a feeding frenzy. To him, this arrival of dolphins to a food source at different times suggests that they are hunting in loose spread out packs over a large area. This could be a higher yielding strategy used in areas of minimal fish stocks (like the English Channel).After breakfast we observe from the shelter of the stern until the cold gets the better of us at 11am. A second stint on the stern produces a lovely close view of a great shearwater.

After lunch, we watch for another two hours until by 3pm the Cornish coast is up on the horizon. Then somewhere between us and what I had decided could be the Lizard peninsular, I catch sight of an inverted wave breaking upwards against thin air. It occurs again a second later, in the same place. I lift up my binoculars and hold my breathe, pause, and then see it clearly; two more wispy blows, that judging from their small size are likely to be of a minkie whale. I scan the water surface for further confirmation; it does not come. Instead we take those four blows as a signal to end our expedition as it began, with the exhalation of a distant giant.