Features
- High Difficulty
- 15 Km
Description of the walk
Carpark – Pla del Gracimal (Mas de Colut) (Colut’s farm).
(1,775 m / 35’)
Leave the park Barranc de la Font, cross the road and you will find the first sign pointing up a path running up the mountain. Immediately you will see a sign indicating a path to the right, which takes us round the western side of the castle as far as its esplanade. Heading north-east, a few metres further on we cross the CV – 810 road and follow the path up to the track to Pla del Gacimal (Colut’s Farm).
Colut’s Farm – Pineta.
(480 m / 30’)
The tarmacked track gives way to an earth track and we follow a path to the left, which takes us to another track which we follow to the left, passing the Pineta house.
Pineta – Collado
(1,750m / 40’)
The path continues up the first hill. Here you can see wonderful panoramic views of the surroundings.
The first hill to the summit of the Migjorn Mountain.
(507 m / 15’)
The route takes us round to the right, near the wall of the cliff, to the second hill, and once over that, the route bears round to the left and on to the triangulation point (trig point) which is at a height of 1,226m. (On a clear day, you can see the coast of Murcia from here.)
Summit of Migjorn – Cueva de los Corrales (Animal Pen Cave).
(1,350m / 25’)
Descend as far as the second hill and bear west along the slope. On reaching flat ground, we bear right in the direction of the Cueva de los Corrales (the ruins of a house and a well).
Cueva de los Corrales – Primera Queresa hill
(1,100 m / 20’)
Going down the path towards the northwest, we reach the Mitja Queresa, from where we can see the Jijona valley with the town in the background.
Mitja Queresa – Barranc de la Font Park
(4,250m / 1h)
Following the path with the Jijona valley as landscape, we continue until we meet the path we originally passed along, which will take us back to the castle and then the Barranc de la Font park.
*You can also start this walk in the Els Bassons park, on the outskirts of Jijona on the road to Tibi.
*All timings are approximate, and are based on the capabilities of a moderately fit person with experience of mountain walking.
Information of interest
Flora and Fauna
The vegetation of this area is very homogenous, consisting mainly of Aleppo pine woods, which, although they are the products of re-forestation initiatives, are now very naturalised. You also find small holly oak woods. The bushes around the pine woods are those naturally heat-loving Mediterranean species such as kermes oak, juniper, arcadia juniper lentiscus, turpentine or cornicabra tree and European fan palm.
The species plants of the region are those typically found in places where the line of holly oak recedes and are comprised of plants of the leguminous, cistacae and aromatic labitiatae families such as gorse, blue broom, esparto grass, rock rose, pale stone crop, thyme, sage, ironwort and rosemary.
As far as fauna is concerned we can find such mammals as foxes, badgers, common genets, wild boars, rabbits, hares, Barbary sheep, (an ungulate introduced from north Africa for the purposes of hunting), and mouflon (a type of wild sheep). As for amphibians, we note the presence of the common green frog, toads, the Iberian wall lizard , the rock lizard, the ocellated lizard, Lataste’s viper, ladder snakes and the Montpellier snake.
The bird life comprises such species as Common Wood Pigeons, Turtle Doves, Golden Eagles, the Short-toed Snake Eagle, Horned Owls, Little Owls, falcons, Common Kestrels, crows, jackdaws, Red-Legged Partridges, and a great variety of insect-eating birds.