This is part 3 and the final post in Madeira's highest summit hike series. In This post, you see the weather drastically changing on us and I managed to injure my knee pretty badly.
If you haven't seen then you can find the previous posts below.
Part 1: The Sharp Cliffs
Part 2: On Top of the Island
We had conquered the highest point of Madeira island and now it was time to start going back. It was not a loop trail so we used the exact same trail for going back. We were already quite exhausted but we still had 7 kilometers and thousands of steep stairs to climb.
Back in the dead trees region.
Here you can see some of the stairs on this trail.
Madeira has a pretty interesting microclimate over the island. In the first half of every day, if the weather was clear, the mountaintops are free of clouds and you can clearly see everywhere, in the second half of the day the clouds always appear and when you are on the lower altitudes of the island you cant see the mountaintops anymore. Every day was the same, no exceptions. Neither was this day. As the clock was past 2 or 3, the cloud appeared and slowly we lost the visibility of the surrounding areas. It would be quite sad to not see the landscapes but fortunately, we had already seen everything there is to see when we first hiked towards the mountaintop.
I liked it because for me, it created a lot of really cool photo opportunities. Also, my hands started to get sunburned anyway so it was good to get rid of direct sunshine for a change.
This is a framework I really like. Blue sky, clouds, cliff and greenery. The clouds were fast-moving and created a different look after every second. I took many photos there but ended up keeping 3 of them. I am unable to decide which one is the best. I'll leave all of these below.
Some places seemed really spooky because on either side you know you have hundreds of meters drop but you don't see anything due to clouds.
By now we were almost at the last stretch of this hike. The exhaustion was real. I also damaged my knee and it started to hurt quite a bit before the end part. The problem is that it got progressively worse. At some point, I was almost unable to bend the knee and step on this leg as the pressure was painful. My left knee was fine so I started to put all the pressure on one leg, I was worried that I might soon damage this knee as well and then I don't know how I walk.
I know what made my knee hurt.., those stairs, particularly walking down from the stairs. As I mentioned there are several thousand stairs on this trail and the altitude gain is 1000 meters and we had to complete the trail twice, going there and back. Walking down the stairs put immense pressure on the knees and it's a matter of time how long can a knee take it. I walked like a goddamn clown because I couldn't bend the knee much. Walking up the stairs was mildly painful but going down was a complete agony.
When we were at the endpoint, we started to see crowds of people again who just walk the trail a little bit.
The following photo is so dope! It needs very specific conditions to capture a photo like this. Fortunately for me, the perfect scenario happened when I was there. This picture is also a part of the collection of my favorite photos from last year.
We did it! It was the end of the hike. Over 14 kilometers of very steep and rugged trails plus countless stairs. The feeling of accomplishment was insane. My body was so tired that I just wanted to sit down and not stand again this day. My knee was killing me when walking and I was worried that it will ruin the remainder of my travels on Madeira or worse, I made permanent damage to it. Fortunately, it got a bit better the day after, much better in two days and after that, I barely felt it anymore and I could hike again.
Hope you enjoyed this highlight hike series in all 3 posts. Much more other content of Madeira is still coming.
Don't forget to participate in my monthly weather guessing game here and you might win 10 HIVE. The game is open until the 17th of February.
