Walking in Tenerife

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Guajara (2718 m) , Montana Pasajiron (2529 m), Montana de Roque (2198 m)

Mountains :

My walk up mount Guajara in Tenerife was probably the nicest mountain walk I have ever undertaken. The weather was perfect all day; on my visits to the national park I had really awful weather on 50 % of the days and great weather on 50 % of them. That is probably not statistically normal though; I am informed that there are normally more than 300 days of sunshine each year. On top of the great weather with sunshine all day and a cool breeze I felt in tip-top shape, felt like walking for days, I marched on at great speed.

   

Tenerife’s Guajara Mountain is located right behind the Parador hotel and bus-stop. However to reach the summit one has to go approximately 2 km east on the jeep track (of course closed for public cars). Then turn right up the steeper hills on a smaller footpath. From a distance their is no footpath clearly visible, especially from the west side it seem really difficult to get up (even more difficult down) the mountain. It is probably highly illegal to go up using anything other than this footpath. In the picture below to the left you can see to the east the approximate turnoff point from the jeep track. The nearest summit on this image is Roque de la Grieta (2575 m) and the more distant with its characteristic egg shaped peak is Topo de la Grieta (2502 m).

   

From the jeep track the path leads you up to a col where the way splits in four directions. Picture above to the left shows the view straight ahead, to the left the path leads you to Montana Pasajiron (2529 m), straight ahead down the valley in the opposite direction from where we came and to the right two paths that can be followed up to the Guajara summit. The first less dramatic, not so steep, the other follows the edge of the mountain to the summit, steeper but a very nice footpath. I followed the last path both up and down, it would have been better to have gone up one and down the other.

 

Pearls on a string: (Below to the left) Looking down at the crossroads in the middle, described above. The nearest mountain is Montana Pasajiron (2529 m), then Roque de la Grieta (2575 m) and the easily recognizeable Topo de la Grieta (2502 m). Picture to the right, below, shows the footpath towards the Guajara Mountain between some astonishing rock formations.

 

Image below, to the right : from the summit of Guajara, looking down on the Parador hotel and the Los Roques de Garcia . Behind, to the right the Pico Viejo (3134 m).

 
 

The view from Guajara was great this day, all the way from Pico Viejo to the astronimacal observatories in the east. As mentioned, one has only 5 hours of walking when taking the public bus from Puerto de la Cruz. So one has to keep going to get as much as possible out of the day. On my way down I hid my rucksack in some bushes at the crossroads and ran up to Montana Pasajiron. Picture above to the right shows the view from there to Roque de la Grieta (2575 m). Then I ran down again and marched on to the Parador hotel. Pictured below Guajara and yours truly.

 

The day wasn’t over yet, thanks to my feeling particularly fit this day I was back at the hotel 45 minutes before the bus was due to leave, so I even had time for a walk to the Montana de Roque (2198 m), a short, very easy, walk. The view from it to the south is in the picture below to the left. Some interesting rocks in green in the middle, but because of the angle of the sun they seem white. Pictured right you see the same rocks from another day and place much more clearly. The mountain to the left is Montana de Roque (2198 m).