Costa Blanca Mountain Way

SimonWillis.co.uk

A five day backpacking trip through the mountains of Spain’s Costa Blanca is a hot adventure for Simon Willis, eventually!

I started badly. I’d followed the guidebook to the letter and walked out of Villalonga with the brick works on my right. The track climbed towards orange groves, ducked back on itself, dodged down a riverbed and.... there was the brick works again! Puzzled, I started for a second time, now holding the book open as I walked, but soon found myself stepping into my own footprints. There was a small bar next to the brick works, and the sight of a sweaty Englishman hauling a big rucksack repeatedly past its open door (in different directions) caused first curiosity, then hilarity among the regulars inside. Chairs were brought out to watch the show. I suspect bets were placed as to when I’d next appear, and from which direction. I maintained my performance for over an hour before admitting I needed both help, and a cold beer, but lacking the Spanish for, “I appear to be trapped in Groundhog day”, I settled for directions. After much arm waving and sniggering, I was pointed towards the correct track, which, since you ask, it was in an entirely different direction to that described in my guidebook. Should you find yourself in Villalonga, keep the brick works on your left.

The Costa Blanca Mountain Way was created ten years ago by a group of expatriate hikers and described in Bob Stansfield’s excellent guidebook. While I experienced several route finding nightmares along the seventy miles of the way, such mistakes should be a thing of the past because the book has now been revised and updated. With good weather and cheap flights, the route is an ideal one-week overseas backpacking trip, and although the heat can be demanding, this is more an enjoyable adventure than an epic challenge.

Once you find the right route of the town, the first day is a cruise over rolling hills and through one small town after another, a gentle introduction and a chance to meet some of the people who live in these mountain communities. It’s on the is second day that the route really gets going, diving first into a deep chasm then climbing high over a craggy ridge. With a name like Baranco del Infierno, you know the gorge is going to be hellish hot in summer. However, the trail into its depths is Mozarabic having been built by the North Africans who ruled this part of Spain many centuries before. Like their terraced fields on hillsides and their aqueducts, the ancient road is extremely well engineered, negotiating the steep gradient with sublime dexterity, while its partner trail climbs the opposite wall with equal aplomb. After two hours walking, I arrived at the Bar Nostro in Fleix, and looked up at the first real mountain of the walk.

The Caballo Verde Ridge, the Green Knight, rises 843m above sea level (2765ft), and the land drops away dramatically on either side. As I picked my way along the broken limestone pavement, the views completely contradicted the sun bleached barren image of Spain. I looked back to the wooded plain I’d crossed yesterday, down into the deep gorge that had been this mornings challenge, and finally across to the next hillside, blanketed by a dense forest. Should anyone still think Spain is sun, sea and sangria, they should come stand here.

In the heat, water becomes an obsession. With no running rivers or streams, I started to plan ahead in water stages, filling bottles in villages and wayside wells and drinking as much as possible. Several wells mentioned in the old guidebook have either been locked or filled in, but I did locate others, and it’s worth carrying a length of thin cord and some sort of scoop to lower into the well and draw water. One particularly hot, tough morning, when I’d accidentally taken two wrong turnings and run out of water, I passed a summer house with the shutters down, no one at home and an outside tap. I guzzled the water directly from the spout, but as I was enjoying the refreshment, a hideous prawn like insect, about two inches long and bleached white with brown spots squirted out the tap and plopped onto my face. As you might imagine, this was the low point of the trip.

The high point came just a few hours later. I’d crossed the valley floor and climbed onto another ridge when I suddenly stumbled across one of the most perfect mountain hideaways I have even seen. Sheltered beneath a gap in the crest of the Sierra Aixorta ridge, the Fuente Umbria is a fertile oasis in a rugged land of rock, all thanks to the sweet water which flows from the well which gives the place its name. The shepherd’s hut was locked, but his alfresco stone dining table offered better views than the fanciest Madrid restaurant. Feeling very content, after a lunch of sardines, bread and cheese, I lay under a tree and adopted the civilised Spanish practice of siesta.

I quickly became used to sleeping outside, and although I carried a GoLite tarp, I only used it once as it was dry enough to enjoy an uninterrupted view of the heavens. Twice I slept among the ruins of old farmhouses, called fincas, and twice I slept in orange or olive groves, high in the mountains and well away from any homes. My living pattern started to synchronise with the sun. When it was too hot, I stopped and dozed in the shade. Likewise, I rose with the dawn, breakfasted, and was soon on my way, frequently arriving in towns and villages before most people were awake. Which explains how, on the last day of the hike, I found myself in the small town of Benifato enjoying what for me was a mid-day coffee and what everyone else would consider breakfast, looking up at Aitana, the highest mountain in the region (1558m / 5,111ft ) and technically, the end of the Costa Blanca Mountain Way.

It’s prudent to save the best until last, and Aitana is a superb, popular hike. The marked route climbs to the base of the giant cliffs which guard the mountain, then follows a very steep trail clinging to the side of the rock and squeezing past a tilted stone known locally as “fat man’s agony”, before opening out onto a vast summit plateau. I would dearly love to report this was a superb wilderness area, but the top of this fine mountain is scarred by a huge military base that bristles with antennae and barbed wire. I turned my back and looked north, gazing across range after range of mountains over which I had just walked. I saw that peaceful oasis where I’d taken my siesta yesterday on the Sierra Aixorta, and behind it, I managed to make out other sections of my route, still familiar but now so far away. And far in the distance, the high-rise hotels of the coastal towns shimmered in the heat like monstrous mirages, a different world to the mountain communities in which I’d spent the last week. It would be pompous to claim I had somehow experienced the “real” Spain, and also quite wrong, I’d just seen a different one. But I know which Spain I prefer.

The Route

Glasgow - Villalonga - Las Penas 3 mls. Plane, train and taxi, plus a frustrating, time wasting start. I camped three miles out of Villalonga on the terrace of an abandoned orange grove, tucked in a pine forrest. No water.

Las Penas - Corral de la Carrasca 18 mls. Camp in a ruined farmhouse with a good well.

Corral de la Carrasca - Els Moliners 14 mls. Camp on flat threshing floor of ruined mill with water trickling from a pipe not too far away.

Els Moliners - Peneta de la Hiedra 23 mls. Camp in olive grove, just below Sierra Aixorta on road down to Guadalest reservoir. No water.

Peneta de la Hiedra - Aitana Summit - Benifato 7 mls. Then descend 5 miles to Hostal Sant Miguel in Benifato.

Information

· The route seems designed for those who can get a lift to the start. I used public transport and the costs quickly mounted.

· Taxi Alicante Airport - town centre £7.50.

· “Lemon Express” train from Marina Railway Station (there are two) to Denia £4.

· Taxi to Villalonga £30. With hindsight, it might have been cheaper, and quicker, to rent an Avis car at the airport (provided it’s booked in the UK) drop it off in Gandia, then take a taxi to Villalonga.

· Return taxi from Benifato to Benidorm cost £27

· Train to Alicante £2.

Logistics: Food supplies in mountains are very limited, so stock up at the supermarket in Denia which is close to the taxi rank. Stove fuel is non-existent outside the city, so visit K2 Sports on Calle Belando in Alicante to buy Coleman screw-in type gas canisters, or if you’re using an MSR type stove, prepare to burn petrol.

Accommodation: Sleeping under the stars was a very special part of this trip. I deliberately camped high, avoiding any homes because many Spanish properties are protected by snarling dogs. But apart from the weekend climb of Aitana, I met no other hikers and only saw people in villages and low level fields. Basic Spanish hotels are often called Hostals or Fondas, and in my experience usually have clean rooms with private facilities. The new guidebook should describe accommodation alternatives and even small hotels can now be found on-line.

Guidebook: Mountain Walks on the Costa Blanca by Bob Stansfield (pub. Cicerone) is still the only guide book. It has been revised and updated in two volumes, with the route described in volume 1.

Maps: In order, the 1:50,000 military maps needed for the whole route are: Jativa (795), Gandia (796), Benisa (822), Alcoy (821), and Villajoyosa (847). The 1:25,000 Mapa Topographico Nacional for Orba (822-1) is more useful than the top half of the Benisa sheet for crossing the Caballo Verde Ridge. Compared to the OS maps, these are hopeless - I found a major trunk road completely missing.

When to go: Spring is the best time to walk the way, after the winter cloud has cleared and before the ferocious heat of summer. I first intended to tackle the hike one March but several days of thunderstorms and torrential rain forced me out of the hills. I had better luck in early April.