Chapter 38 - Sierra Nevada

The road was long and dreary, but the thought of getting a ride in Santa's sleigh kept him going. It was now the season of autumn and he had been on the road for many months, not to mention his ocean crossing experience which had taken him through the Panama Canal, across the Equator, then to New Zealand, where he just managed to escape being caught by Customs and Immigration officers and finally through the Strait of Gibraltar. Despite all this, he was not much closer the reaching his retirement goal besides his chosen garden pond in England.

Press on, that was all he could do and eventually towards the end of October he could see the bare hills of Sierra Nevada beyond Granada in the distance. No snow though, so he still had time.

The distance from central Granada to the Sierra Nevada was signposted as 30km or about 8 hours walking for a normal human being. Gammelnok estimated he would need at least 5 days to get there. But first he had to get though Granada and out the other side.

Getting through the city was a lot more difficult than expected, with narrow streets, steps leading both up and down. But, persevering and keeping to a south easterly direction he soon got through. The open road to the Sierra Nevada Mountains now lay ahead of him.

After several days walking, he could now see the slopes clearly but was disturbed by the amounts of ski lifts. That would prove yet another problem. He needed a slope without any obstructions and away from prying eyes in order to be able to light up a landing strip for Santa's sleigh, probably every night for weeks.

Everywhere he looked, there was yet another commercialised hill that would have suited him fine, but for the pylons with wire suspended gondolas or 'grab and drop' seats.

There was nothing for it, he had to walk further away from the ski resorts and back into the wild terrain of the Mulhacén mountain range to the north.

Probably not a bad idea after all, as hopefully his ride would come from the north and also, there would not be so much light pollution up there.

Decision made, he headed off.

There was no snow yet, so the going was easy. Along the way Gammelnok pondered the problem of lighting up a landing strip for possibly many nights. All he had were a few matches left in his Haversack by his mother after his adventure following the kidnapping of the Triana Mayor's son nearly half a year ago.

As he walked slowly northwards towards the slopes of Mulhacén, he gathered whatever dry branches he could manage, tying them together with strands of tough mountain grass. Soon he was dragging several meters of combustible material behind him.

After a week of slogging uphill he decided that he could go no further and that this would have to be the place where he would wait to be rescued. He had a sizeable amount if firewood and started to make a series of indentations in the soil for his landing strip fires. All the fire pits had been dug so the shallow part faced north and the displaced soil provided a southward backdrop to protect the fires against the anticipated wind and snow.

Once satisfied that he could do no more, he found a hollow and erected himself a shelter where could wait until the snowfall. And then he lay down and fell into a deep exhausted sleep.

Something wet fell on his face and his beard had turned white. Startled Gammelnok sat up looked around and jumped up, shouting with joy: "Its Snowing." He danced around in the gentle snowfall seeing an end to his journey.

It took several days for the hills to be covered with enough snow to begin thinking about lighting the signal fires. Gammelnok spent the time compacting the snow around the fire pits he had dug. Special attention was paid to the inside of the south facing back of the pits. The harder the snow could be compacted, the longer it could resist the heat from the fire, and it would also act as a mirror reflecting light into the northward sky, from where Gammelnok hoped Santa's Sleigh would be approaching. 

To Gammelnok's surprise, his fire pits also worked as markers in the daylight sunshine. When the sun was high in the sky, the back of the fire pits cast a long notable shadow over the pristine snow working as a guide that could be seen from the sky above the hill.

It was now the middle of November and if his letter had arrived at the North Pole post office and if Santa's Helper in Charge had done his bit, and if Santa himself was willing to help Gammelnok reach his garden pond in England, then.. Lots of IF's.