Tossals Verds to Refugi Son Amer 08.03.2024
we woke up to rain, but the forecast said it was going to clear up and get windy. We decided we’d rather deal with wind than rain, also the hike is only about 16 km or 5 hours (not that we trust those estimations anymore), so we had an extra coffee at the refugi and took our time packing up. Our gamble paid off better than we expected and by the time we left the sky was half blue already. In comparison many of the other hikers left wearing rain gear.
The first part took us up through fields of olive trees wet with rain. Then turning to thicker naturally forests and climbing. The wind was starting to pick up as we got higher, but we decided to try and find a nice place for lunch where we had a wind breaker, and a view, and ideally was in the sun. We found what appeared to be an old ice house (they used to build houses up in the mountains to store ice, to bring down to town later), so the rock wall blocked the wind, and was still in the sun, and we had a great view. Our lunch was manchego cheese, a baguette, Jamon iberico, blueberries, and some random salami type of thing that we found at the store.
After lunch we reached the saddle, which was the highest point of the day and had views down to the ocean and the beach where the hike ends far in the distance. We ran into two women who we had played cards with the night before, who we had been leapfrogging all day and chatted with them for a little while. Then just after the top we found a place sheltered from the wind and sat and enjoyed the view for a little bit.
The hike down from the saddle was quick. I thought the trail was going to head back up the other side, but instead it went lower into the valley. It was just after noon and the sign we crossed said it would only take three hours to get to the refugi, and we weren’t in a rush to get there too early, so we decided to take a trail up the other side of the hill anyway, from the looks of the map there should be a ridge trail that descends a little further down and joins the GR 221 anyway. The concern was that maybe it would be too steep of a descent to take safely (or a Klettersteig), but we figured it was worth the shot, and we could always backtrack, since we had plenty of time.
Unlike the GR 221 the trail up the ridge was hard to follow, marked by small carins, and subtle signs of foot (or hoof) traffic. When we got to the ridge, the views opened up again. The view was mostly the same as the saddle we had just descended, however we got some better views back to Puig Major (the largest mountain in the range). The ridge trail was marked as poorly as the trail up the ridge, but it’s easy enough to follow the ridge, so again the only concern was descending. We spotted two guys on the other side of the ridge, who were moving really fast and has passed us on the way down from the saddle, and realized the GR 221 didn’t descend nearly as quickly as we thought it did, and in fact went down then came back up a bit. We could have actually just hiked down to it instead of going along the ridge, but what fun would that have been?
At the last peak of the ridge we could see where we meet up with the official trail again, and I realized there was a side trip path going up the next peak (which was much more clearly marked), so we descended down to the GR 221, crossed it and kept going up to another peak. There was a small scramble at the top which was a little too steep for Bettina, but when I made it to the top I was able to see an easier way on the other side. Again we had fantastic views to the beach at the end of the trail and the town there, similar to the saddle, but more panoramic.
At that point we decided we had goofed off enough, so we headed back and joined the GR 221 again and hiked down to the refugi.
When we got to Lluc, we first passed the monastery that is the big attraction (big parking lot and lots of people), the refugi is just a little further down the trail, so we hiked there first to have a better shot at grabbing better beds (although it ended up not making a difference), and we planned to walk back without our packs. The hike there was more uphill than we expected, and we felt lazy after taking our packs off and settling in a little so we decided to give up on the monastery.
The dinner was fish cooked with some greens and tomatoes in a broth, apparently a Mallorcan specialty, which was very interesting and tasty (for refugi food), we met a couple from outside Madrid and chatted with them a bunch, as well two of the German women from the night before.