The Valcuerno range. Three paths, less than two hours of daylight and one detail only one of them had noticed.
At half past five in the afternoon, Hugo and his aunt Inés reached the Valcuerno pass and stopped dead. Three paths led off from there, and neither of them was sure which one was theirs.
They had left the Peña Albar mountain hut at nine in the morning. Saúl, the warden, had waved them off from the door: “The sun sets at ten past seven. And don’t mix up our hut with the shepherds’ shelter in the next valley: ours is the one with the red roof.” At first they climbed beside a stream that ran on their left, noisy and icy. At the Three Slabs spring they left it behind and climbed straight up towards the pass, following the cairns, those little piles of stones that mark the way. Hugo noticed something Inés thought was silly: every cairn had a white quartz stone on top, like a hat.
Then they climbed to the summit and, on the way down, went round a snowfield on the far side. That was why they were now reaching the pass from a different side, and from there everything looked new. To make matters worse, the cold had drained the battery of Inés’s phone. No map, no GPS.
“The one on the right goes up; not that one,” she said. “And look: down the middle one you can see a house at the bottom of the valley. Let’s go down that way.”
Hugo looked at the house: it had a grey slate roof. Then he went over to the middle path. Its cairns were well built, but they were made of grey stone, with nothing on top. Next he went a few metres down the left-hand path, which was steeper. There, beside a clump of heather, stood a cairn with a white stone. And, far below, he could hear running water.
“Auntie, come here,” he said. “I think I know the way home.”
Inés looked at her watch: a quarter to six. That morning it had taken them an hour from the spring to the hut, and the stretch from the pass down to the spring was short. If they got it right, they would arrive before dark. If they got it wrong, they wouldn’t.
Activities
1 Detective Inference
Which path should Hugo and Inés have taken down? Tick the correct hypothesis.
- a) The middle one, which went straight down to the house they could see at the bottom of the valley.
- ✓b) The left-hand one, which joined up with the path they had climbed that morning.
- c) The right-hand one, to look higher up for somewhere with phone signal.
- d) None of them: the safest thing was to stay at the pass and wait for Saúl to come up and find them.
Which clue proves it? Copy or summarise the clue from the text that proves it.
Correct hypothesis: b). Exactly: it was their way back.
Key clue: “Its first cairn had the white quartz stone that every cairn on the way up had, and from there they could hear the stream.” Two clues that fit: the mark on their cairns and the sound of the stream they had climbed beside.
2 The Loom Order of events
The story starts at the pass. Put the day in order from the beginning. Write the order number (1, 2, 3…) in each box.
- 1 Saúl reminds them what time the sun sets.
- 2 They climb with the stream on their left.
- 4 Hugo notices the white stones on the cairns.
- 6 Hugo finds a cairn with a white stone on the left-hand path.
- 5 They go round a snowfield on the way down from the summit.
- 3 They leave the stream at the Three Slabs spring.
Correct order:
- Saúl reminds them what time the sun sets.
- They climb with the stream on their left.
- They leave the stream at the Three Slabs spring.
- Hugo notices the white stones on the cairns.
- They go round a snowfield on the way down from the summit.
- Hugo finds a cairn with a white stone on the left-hand path.
The story begins at the pass, at half past five, and then goes back to the morning: Saúl’s goodbye, the climb beside the stream, the spring and the white cairns. Then come the summit and the snowfield, and finally, back at the pass, Hugo finds the clue.
3 The Missing Page Coherence
Which continuation fits everything we know? Tick only one option.
- ✓a) They take the left path, reach the Three Slabs spring and follow the stream, now on their right, to the hut. They arrive just before seven.
- b) They take the left path to the spring and follow the stream to the hut. As in the morning, the water stays on their left the whole way, noisy and icy.
- c) They take the middle path, from grey cairn to grey cairn, and in half an hour they reach the house in the valley, which turns out to be Saúl’s hut.
- d) Inés calls Saúl on her phone, which still has a little battery left, and he guides them back step by step over the phone.
Answer: a). On the way up the stream was on their left; going down the same way it must be on their right. And the times fit with nightfall.
- b) If the stream was on their left going up, it must be on their right coming down the same path.
- c) The house in the valley had a grey roof: it was the shepherds’ shelter, not the red-roofed hut. And the grey cairns aren’t the ones on their route.
- d) The cold had drained the phone’s battery completely.
4 Spot the Contradiction Literal reading
Three statements don’t fit the story. Put an X next to the 3 statements that don’t fit the text.
- ✗a) They left the hut early in the afternoon.They left at nine in the morning.
- b) The cairns on the way up had a white stone on top.That’s what Hugo noticed.
- ✗c) Inés’s phone helped them find their way at the pass.The cold had drained its battery.
- d) On the way up, the stream ran on their left.That’s what the second paragraph says.
- ✗e) The right-hand path went down into the valley.That path went up.
- f) The sun set at ten past seven.That’s what Saúl told them as they left.
5 The Gallery Visualisation
In the game you choose the illustration that answers this question: “Which illustration shows the pass when Hugo finds the way?”. Here, you draw it yourself, with every detail the text gives you.
What should appear: A clear afternoon, three paths, the white stone on the left-hand cairn and grey cairns on the middle path. Only Hugo and Inés.
Reward drawings that include the details from the text, not artistic skill.
Ending
To read aloud once the answers have been checked.
They went down slowly, from white cairn to white cairn. Twenty minutes later the Three Slabs spring appeared. From there they only had to follow the stream, which was now singing on their right. At five to seven, with the sun already brushing the ridges, Saúl opened the door of the red-roofed hut for them.
“The house you saw is the shepherds’ shelter, in the Ríoseco valley,” he told them later, by the stove. “That way it’s four hours downhill; at night, impossible. The cairns with the white stones were put there by my father, forty years ago, so that nobody would get lost on the way back.”
The next morning, before they left, Hugo climbed up to the first cairn and placed a new white stone on top.
Suggested marking
Each activity is worth 2 points (10 in total). In 1, one point for the hypothesis and one for the clue. In 2, give one point if only a couple of events are swapped. In 4, half a point for each correct cross and minus half a point for each true statement crossed out.