Walking guide and author Guy Hunter-Watts chooses one of his favourite hikes in the mountains close to Marbella, the ascent of La Torrecilla. The walk is one of many described in his book The Mountains of Ronda & Grazalema.
Ronda numbers amongst southern Spain’s most spectacular urban inventions. Just 40 km inland from the beaches of the Costa del Sol, the town fans out along the precipitous edge of a high plateau, cleft in two by the plunging gorge of the Río Guadalevín. From the mid 19th century, the town became a favoured destination of travelers to Spain, an off-shoot of the Grand Tour at a time when travel, for travel’s sake, became fashionable amongst the privileged. The literati and painters of the Romantic movement gilded the lily, ensuring that it became an essential stop-over on any journey through Moorish Andalucía.
West of the town the villages of the Grazalema Natural Park are linked by a network of drover’s paths which wind through groves of olive and almond and ancient stands of holm and gall oaks. To the south a vast forest of cork oak stretches nearly all the way to Gibraltar whilst, out east, a high massif rises majestically above the town. This is La Sierra de las Nieves, a UNESCO biosphere reserve which, as the name implies, is often blanketed in snow during the winter months. Last year the park was granted National Park status, one of just three in Andalucía.
The park’s most challenging trail, and one close to my heart, leads to the summit of La Torrecilla (1919m). This is the massif’s highest peak and from the summit you’re treated to one of the most bone-thrilling vistas to be found in Andalucía. The 360-degree panorama encompasses the Sierra Nevada, a long stretch of the Mediterranean coast, Málaga, Gibraltar and the Strait, whilst on clear days the Rif mountains of northern Morocco rise hazily above a glittering sea.
The Nitty Gritty
Distance: 15.7km
Time required: 5.5 hours
Ascent\descent: 675 m
Rating: Difficult
The Walk
The adventure begins with a drive along 10 km of rutted track which bring you to the trailhead and the mountain refuge of Los Quejigales. Crossing a narrow bridge that spans a babbling stream – it can become a torrent in the winter months – your first challenge comes in the form of a rocky path which zig zags steeply up through the largest stand of Spanish firs or pinsapos (Abies pinsapo) in the sierra. These Ice Age relics are the botanical jewel of the park, a species found only in Andalucía, the Moroccan Rif and remote parts of the Caucasus. The forest is a sculptural wonderland of twisted trunks, some up to thirty metres in height. It’s even more beautiful when the ancient trees are cloaked in the mist that often licks round the mountain early in the day.
Breaking out of the forest you reach a high, windy ridge as the Med’ comes into view. Here the trail loops north then back south before adopting a course towards La Torrecilla. Passing an ancient ice pit the path runs through a swathe of gall oaks (Quercus faginea). The forest suffered greatly at a time when its wood supplied the shipyards of the Atlantic coast: the tiny caravel that carried Columbus west to America was almost certainly built of oak from the Ronda mountains. Further devastation came at the hands of charcoal burners who worked the forest until just 50 years back. The trees are now a protected species and are thriving once again, aided by restrictions placed on the grazing of goats.
The waymarked trail runs on past the entrance to the pothole Sima GESM. Explored to 1,100m, this is one of the deepest potholes in Europe and was discovered just 40 years ago. Here the path crosses a series of flat-bottomed dolines, or depressions in the limestone, their baize-like grass strangely reminiscent of neatly-tended golfing greens. Cutting through a cleft in the rocks you come to the spring and Roman drinking troughs of El Pilar de Tolox. This is the place to replenish your water bottle before tackling the final 200m of ascent to the summit, now high above the tree line.
After gulping in the dizzy views from this extraordinary natural mirador you need to retrace your footsteps back down to the ice pit you passed early in the walk. From here a second path loops further north, leading down through a second stand of magnificent pinsapos, to bring you back to the trailhead after some six hours of exhilarating trail.
It’s a hike that’s not only fascinating from a botanical and historical perspective but one that takes you to the heart of the one of the wildest tracts of mountain terrain in southern Spain, a must-walk should you come to explore the trails close to Ronda.
Guy Hunter-Watts has lived for 30 years in a village just west of Ronda. He is the author of Walking in Andalucía, Coastal Walks in Andalucía, The Andalucian Coast to Coast Walk and Trekking the GR7 in Andalucía. All books are available from Cicerone Books, Amazon or via his website www.guyhunterwatts.com which also has details of his guided walks in the Grazalema Park.
