Subida al Teide desde el norte

"subida al Teide desde el norte"

I put the above words into google search, and was a bit baffled to find that nobody seemed to have documented any ascension of the Teide from the north.  Surely someone, I reasoned to myself, over the course of time, someone from one of the settlements spread along the northern flank of the Teide - say, from La Guancha, or San Juan de la Rambla, or Icod de Los Vinos, or Garachico, or El Tanque, or Los Silos, or Buenavista del Norte - surely someone from one of these communities at some point must have risen their eyes to the graceful distant blue peak of El Teide - as I had done - and been filled with the irrepressible urge to climb to the summit.  By all accounts, the shortest and the easiest path to the top of the Teide is from the high altitude road which crosses the southern side of the volcano. But I liked the idea of setting off from Jenny's land above Tierra del Trigo - where I had spent the summer living in her yurt and working in the garden - and walking directly to the top, feeling the distance with every step and seeing the gradual transition from the familiar green 'home' scene to the bare rocky 3715m summit. I saw on the satellite map that from the pinewoods in the north a track climbed to about half way up, and reasoned that, even if the rest of the climb should consist of clambering over boulders, it should offer a satisfying viable ascent, and include a good portion of adventure, precisely because of not following the prescribed paths. The key when striking off into unpathed territory is to strike a handsome balance between venturing into the unknown and staying safe. It is good to have a rough idea of what lies ahead. It is wonderful to rely on one's own resources and resourcefulness while romping around the wilds, while strictly avoiding any kind of recklessness.

It was late in the morning when I set off, due to my obsessive wanting to leave the yurt garden tidy and good-looking, just as I would like to find it again: washing all dishes, wiping all surfaces, as well as watering all seedlings and ensuring that Dulce, the new young goat, had plenty of foliage in her pen to keep her fed till I returned. After 10 minutes I turned back, having finally decided that it would be worth adding two litre cartons of fruit juice to the weight of my rucksack, already laden with abundant food supplies and many litres of water - how wise this decision was! Every drop of those cartons of orange juice and pineapple juice, carried up to the arid desolate heights, would turn into pure liquid gold. Every drop!

In the Sunday-still village of Ruigómez two corpulent children, larking about on a sort of cart, asked me to push them. I don't think they really expected me to take off my rucksack and take up the handle and start pushing them with gusto, "right lads, which direction are we heading, right or left here?"  —  "Stop! enough! leave us here!" they protested. "Bueno" I said, shouldering my rucksack and heading on out the village, leaving their excited chatter fading behind me.

After weeks of voluntary confinement on Jenny's land, encouraging the growth of all sorts of plants and very focussed - quasi obsessed - on the aesthetic layout and conjunction of all garden elements, the squalor and neglected state of many of the parcels of land which I passed struck me. One wants to be comprehending; there are many activities and pursuits which vie for our attention in life; one understands that giving attention to a piece of land which one happens to possess isn't at the top of everyone's 'must do' or 'want to do' list, but this struck me nonetheless. 

After San José de los Llanos the pinewoods begin. Everything is pure & fresh here. In 1909 (the most recent volcanic activity on Tenerife) the magma found a fissure and spluttered up for three days, leaving a massive mound of black little porous nuggets, which are elsewhere gathered and sold in garden centres. At Chinyero they have added an attractive feature to Nature's Garden. This is hallowed ground, protected by law to be as it is, valued for its very untampered nature. What a contrast with much of the rest of the island, bulldozed contemptuously for new commercial centres, new luxury apartments and new roads, or else strewn with unwanted items and the waste of construction. Thank God that these pinewoods can be; thank the authorities that be for awarding them the status of natural reserve. Under the hot afternoon sun I progressed enchanted along forest trails winding between the shadows of silent statuesque pines and the bright sunlight filtered through outlandish groping branches bristling with bushy green needles. The air was heavy with the gorgeous sweet scent of their resin. The forest floor was littered with a thick layer of their dried brown fallen needles, which made a springy mattress on which I took a wee siesta in the shade. I realised that I had forgotten to take my camping mat, and set about stuffing handfuls of the dried pine needles into the bottom of my rucksack, to offer some padding on the rocky top I hoped to have reached by evening. 

Night descended upon me a good way up the slope, and yet still a good way from the top.  I decided that it would be best to leave my tent where it was pitched and set off a few hours before dawn to make a bid for the summit unencumbered by any unnecessary weight. I carried only a couple of litres of water, and a few things to nibble on. Nevertheless the going wasn't easy, picking my way up a steep slope of loose boulders by the faint light of my headlamp, peering into the surrounding darkness, trying to discern what the best way forward was. The thrilling adventure of having ventured off path! I was weary from the previous day's long haul through the woods. I feel that the thinner air as I climbed contributed to my drowsy state of mind, causing me to act more as an automaton than as a real lively centre of awareness. I dimly perceived the first light of dawn silhouetting the peak of El Teide, ever nearer and yet always far away, and trundled slowly on.  I began to give vent to my belaboured breathing, puffing and panting exaggeratedly and then giving audible groans which expressed the intensity of the exertions demanded of me. In my more youthful days I extolled the phrase "where there's a will there's a way", and I still clung to it - I still wanted and believed my will to be strong - all the while observing the inefficacy of my will to surmount the mountain at any speed. I wanted to replace my grunting and groaning with words: 

'O my God' is obviously overused,

'O my Goddess'? 

'O my Goodness'

'O my Word' will do - declining to define the word, but letting the undefined notion speak for itself.  Or just 'O my ...' with the possessed object left unsaid. I quite like the phrase 'O my days' which I heard for the first time from the lips of some youths in the north-east of Scotland; 'days' as a synonym of 'time' symbolosing 'life' standing for 'all that is and all that is and all that is' 

'Mamma mia, O my donna, O my sweet lady of the night, O my life, O my dear sweet precious life, O my world, O my will, O my world as will and representation!'

'O my Mountain!', I had hit upon it. The Mountain as the quintessence of all my aspirations and longings and efforts employed to attain them. Why does anybody want to climb any mountain anyway?  What is the point? Is it pure symbolism: the desire to attain something, cost what it may, the prominent elevations of the earth's surface providing an obvious and convenient vessel for the endeavour?

I began to relativise the significance of the mountain summit. The whole appeal of climbing a mountain is the journey leading up to the top. The bulk and substance of the cake is found in the act of climbing: each and every hard-won step. The standing on the top is the cherry on the cake. (Being high up is already icing). The mountain summit serves as the fundamental focussing and directing of efforts, magnetising the momentum, as it were, but the destination is, paradoxically, always found within the journeying itself. Each and every moment, each and every moment, each and every moment of it. 

Some moments are more toilsome than others. The strong sun of a new day had already risen as I toiled towards El Pico Viejo, where every step that I took up the steep screeslope was followed by sliding back down about half a step. Behind el Pico Viejo - the old crater, now a subsidiary summit a few kilometres from the current highest point, which looks like a bizarre high-altitude gravelly football field surrounded by a jagged ring of desolate jumbled rocks - I came across a path. A decent path, which I could follow with confident trusting steps, without having to stop and scan the terrain ahead, and determine how to navigate the potentially perilous pitfalls.  I made a mental note to follow a path in my future ascents of El Teide, in order to conserve my reserves of energy and enjoy the climbing to the max. A few hundred metres from the summit I turned my phone on and saw it was already 9:10am. After 9 o' clock guards are posted by the final section to the summit to check if one has obtained the necessary authorisation. Authorisation is given free of charge, but one must request it months in advance, such is the demand. The number of people allowed on the summit is limited to 200 per day. The goal is to avoid the erosion of the fragile high-altitude environment. That is why visitors are requested to strictly follow the network of paths on the mountain. That is why nobody makes the ascent from the north. That is why my chosen climbing route contravened the norms required by El Teide national park. I take my hat off to them because they are obviously doing a great job promoting access and enjoyment of this unique volcanic environment while preserving beautifully its unspoiled natural state. Therefore I was happy to carefully pick my way back down to my tent, content that the journey had been the ineluctable journey - every step of it - and, ravelled all together, it had been my only destination.