at high altitude can be chilly and winds strong. A sunny morning on the coast is no guarantee of similar temperatures in the mountains.
Wild March day on Montgo (Walk 1)
Equipment
The normal mountain gear of spare food, clothing and windproofs, plus, in winter, waterproofs as well as map, compass and a torch should be carried. Even if you do not normally use trekking poles they are worth considering. Not only will they provide a couple of extra points of contact on steep and loose paths they also come in handy for fending off the aggressive vegetation and even the occasional farm dog. The latter also usually respond to bending down as if picking up a stone. Or even to genuinely picking up a stone for that matter.
Water
Water is often at a premium in this arid landscape and walkers should make sure they have plenty with them. Even in winter at least a litre per person is recommended and in summer much more may be needed. Old wells and springs that dot the mountains are well preserved and often clearly marked on signposts and maps. However, although they are often still used by locals and even townsfolk who come to fill copious numbers of bottles from them, most fonts take their supply straight from the mountain. It is impossible for the casual visitor to verify their purity so without a lifetime’s immunity it may be safer to carry your own supply. That said, I have from time to time made use of the springs to top up water bottles and not come to harm – yet.
Font del Moli (Walk 35)
Safety and insurance
Through necessity many of these walks have been done alone and I have occasionally been taken to task by Spanish walkers for this. It’s hard to argue with them. Despite the intensive development along the coast these are lonely mountains and on many walks I did not see another person all day. On some an injured solo walker might not be discovered for days and mobile telephone cover is patchy, especially in the barrancs, so a companion is always a wise precaution.
Unlike the UK, there is no volunteer mountain rescue service and the regional government has warned that those who have to be rescued ‘through negligence’ will have to pay the cost of the rescue. If a helicopter is needed that could amount to thousands of euros, so visitors should be certain their holiday insurance covers them for all their planned activities and, if necessary, take out the specialist cover through organisations such as the British Mountaineering Council or the various specialist providers. See Appendix C for details.
Paths
These walks are chosen to give a taste of everything the area has to offer, from deep ravines to high ridges and picturesque villages to rocky summits. Many make use of the constantly improving PR-CV (sometimes abbreviated to PR-V) network of Pequenos Recorridos de la Communidad Valenciana. The name means ‘short walks’ although some can be more than 50km long. They are ‘short’ only to differentiate them from the long-distance GR network. Some of the most enjoyable paths are old Mozarabic trails (see History).
The need for circular routes has meant leaving out some excellent linear expeditions only available to those with access to two cars or a driver willing to drop them off and collect them at the start and finish. That would open up a whole new range of possibilities, notably full traverses of the various serras. Many of the PR-CVs are based on old trading routes between towns and villages and can only be fully explored by those with these flexible transport arrangements.
The paths and tracks used vary from rural and forestry roads to narrow trods that are little more than goat trails across steep slopes. The status of a path as a PR-CV should not be taken as meaning it will be either clear or maintained. Paths generally receive little attention and can be badly eroded and loose. A useful approach is to prepare for hard pounding and to welcome the easy sections or forest trails carpeted with pine needles as a welcome bonus. Because of the aggressive undergrowth, often hiding fissures in the limestone, any path is usually safer and infinitely preferable to bushwhacking.
Despite their proximity to the holiday beaches these are serious mountains with all the hazards that entails and are neither to be underestimated nor taken lightly.
Waymarking
The only consistent characteristic of the waymarking is the infinite variety of ways it finds to be ingeniously inconsistent. Even on paths of the same status, such as PR-CVs, it varies from excessively lavish to near invisible. PR-CVs are marked in yellow and white, occasionally on official signposts or, more frequently, with paint flashes on rocks, walls and trees. Two straight lines mean carry straight on, curved lines indicate a turning while crossed lines mean you are going the wrong way, probably having missed a junction.
From top: Markings showing a change of direction, straight on and wrong way
In addition some villages also have a network of local paths, senderos locals (SLs). Often little publicised beyond the village boundary, you may find them marked on a noticeboard in the village square or a local bar may have a leaflet. The more official ones are marked with green and white paint, mimicking the PR-CVs, while more impromptu tracks tend to have occasional splodges in whatever colour was to hand.
Signposting tends increasingly, but again not always, to be in the regional tongue Valenciano rather than Spanish and sometimes even switches between languages on the same walk. In the text, a pragmatic approach has been taken of using whichever name seemed, at the time of writing, to be most helpful given local signing.
As everywhere, signposts are at the mercy of vandals, souvenir hunters and grumpy landowners and can appear and disappear with alarming speed. Exploring an alternative finish to one route I discovered the most useful marker post had disappeared literally overnight.
Maps and language
It is said that a man with a watch always knows the time while a man with two watches is never quite sure. Those raised on the comforting certainties of the Ordnance Survey may come to feel much the same about Spanish maps. The only series to completely cover the area are the IGN ‘Military Maps’, which, to put it kindly, enjoy less than universal acclaim. In recent years they have been joined by various commercial competitors such as Terra Firma, El Tossal and Discovery. These are a vast improvement but as yet none covers the entire area.
Difficulties can also arise when trying to use different maps simultaneously, a problem compounded by the use of the competing languages, Spanish and Valenciano. The latter was suppressed during the rule of General Franco but is now making a strong comeback on road signs, waymarkers and, increasingly, on maps. The reintroduction is not being prosecuted with the aggressive vigour and even venom shown further north in Catalunya but the changeover is gathering pace. Road signs and waymarkers which were once in Spanish and later bilingual are more and more exclusively in Valenciano. Brits who have long had a love affair with the Jalon Valley now find only Xalo signed from the main road and Calpe is losing its final ‘e’. Benidorm remains forever Benidorm.
Mind your language... Spanish sign converted to Valenciano
This mix of languages throws up different spellings and occasionally even different names for the same places, which may bear little relation to each other. Readers are very strongly advised to carry the appropriate large scale map as well as the book. These can be bought from the larger suppliers in the UK and are available in Spain from shops such
