Winter walking on the camino

[sillydoll]

I have added a 'Winter Walking on the Camino' post to my blog with comments (some from this forum) articles, photographs and links to blogs - - like KiwiNomad's http://chemincamino08.blogspot.com/ blog. (Hope you don't mind Maggie, I included two photographs from your blog next to the comment from your blog.)
If you have done a winter camino and would like me to link to your blog, please let me have the URL and I will add it to the post.

 

[KiwiNomad06]

Sure that is fine sil! I think that as the Camino gets more and more popular, people are spreading out into more months in the hope of finding it less crowded.....but I think many imagine Spain is always 'warm'. I was to discover that even in June it can be bitterly cold sometimes!!!

And I notice on a post from falcon today, even in October, he is having accommodation issues on the Camino Aragonese as so many places have closed for the season already. He said: " The biggest problem has been the closing of accommodations. For example, Canfranc Estacion has two of six or eight places still open, one with just four beds, and the other was full!! Only one place in Villanua was open, but not between 1400 and 1900. The albergue in Izco is closed, so there is no short option from Sanguesa toward Monreal. After October, even more closes, including Aruesta." http://www.pilgrimage-to-santiago.com/board/camino-aragones/topic4286.html
Margaret

 

[sillydoll]

Thanks Maggie - I remember reading your blog and how wary you were of hot weather.
When I walked from mid-May to Mid-June in 2002, we had many really cold days and nights at the start, with snow on the mountains. We even missed snow by one day at O Cebreiro at the end of May.
I must say that I loved the wild flowers, the green fields and vineyards and the baby storks in their huge nests in springtime, but walking in September - harvest time - was very pleasant.

 

[KiwiNomad06]

Yep....I thought I had taken too long in France, and left it too late in Spain.... and that June on the Meseta was going to be too hot and too hard for me to handle. I had visions of a bus trip to Leon somewhere along there to avoid the searing temperatures. But instead I found there were many cold days when I wished I had kept my good windjacket and not posted it home from Estella!!! And it turned out I only had about a week of hot weather, and that if you started walking early, you could arrive at an albergue soon after noon, and relax for the rest of the day!

 

[Javier Martin]

Sil, Margaret, I've walked two Caminos in winter (portuguese, 2004 and Sanabres, 2006). The first was not very cold, but the second was hard, with daily snow storms and wind, rain.

ven in early june is possible to see snow in Manjarin, and we know how hard can be the St. Jean - Roncesvalles day.

The meseta is quite cold in winter, even without snow.

Spain is not always warm, but delicious!

Buen Camino, in winter if possible!

Javier Martin
Madrid, Spain.

 

[KiwiNomad06]

This YouTube video by underveis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfulKSGT5Fg gives a good look at some winter conditions late in March - from SJPP to Puente la Reina.
Margaret