Day one: Feb 10th 2010

Two hundred metres past the Fuente De memorial to Franco – whose grandson is, according to one Santander taxi driver, still “very popular” – we parked the wheels of Gaffer Tape Skitours (prop. “Mad” Mike Stuart) and considered our next steps.  “You forgot those skins, didn’t you?” Mike asked me, beginning the customary accusations and endless banter that are part and parcel of a Picos skitour experience.  I knew I was back.  (He hadn’t asked me to take them.  He left them on the kitchen table.  Fortunately I’d brought another pair, but with glue: my own.)

Fuente De cable car station – according to the plaque on the wall, opened by Chief of State Generalissimo Franco in 1966 (“oh, that wanker”, according to local inhabitant Olivia May Stuart (11, a Barcelona and Burnley supporter and resident of Tama, Cantabria)) –

Have you managed to get any climbing or skiing done this season? Did you scale your favourite peak or conquer a new one before the long slog back to a beer and a hot meal? Or was it the draw of the slopes, queuing for the lifts, paying a fortune for a ham toasty or just wondering if that camouflage-clad speedster roaring up behind you really had any control over his snowboard?