Estimated net time	2½-3 hours
Difficulty	No difficulties.
Drinking water	No access to drinking water.
GSM coverage	Coverage at the summit and through most of the route (May 2009).
Parking	Room for many cars at trail head.
Start height	468 metres
Vertical metres	425 metres for the roundtrip
Trip distance	9.9 km
GPS-file	X
Map
Route photo	Crevillente trail head.  Turn left when you get to this farm.

Note that the below description for how to get to trail head is most likely not the easiest, but it should do the job ...

From Alicante drive towards Elche and then take road N-325 towards Aspe. A little before Aspe you get to a round-about, where you exit left onto road CV-845, signed for "Hondon de Las Nieves". Drive approximately 6 km until the next round-about. Here you turn left following signs for "Monte Alto". 300 metres later turn right onto "Calle Norte". Drive 800 metres until you get to a small round-about, and turn right. Follow this road 300 metres and turn left. You will now soon be out in the country-side, north of Crevillente. After another 3.4 km you get to a small hill-top. Parking here at starting the hike on the left hand side of the road is a likely good trail head. Alternatively you can continue another 400 metres to where you have an old concrete building on the right hand side of the road. On the left hand side there is a gravel road that might also be a good starting point. However, this route description assumes you drive yet another 500 metres to where you have a large gravel road going up to the left. Next to the road there is a barbeque place, where you can park.

Start walking by following the gravel road uphill. It might be possible to follow this road all the way to the summit. Alternatively you can turn left, off this road, after 500 metres, cross the fields of trees and head directly east. After approximately 400 metres you will get onto a path. Follow this path uphill, and turn left when you get to a farm. Higher up you get to an old stone building, and you will see another path down on your right hand side. Get onto this other path, and after 130 metres you will get to a paved road. You can now either follow this paved road east and later south-west all the way to the summit, or you can short-cut by heading directly up to the summit ridge trough the forest. The climb through the forest is steep, but there is relatively little bush, and can be considered as an acceptable alternative to the boring road. Up at the ridge you re-join the paved road, turn right, and head up to the summit. There are a number of telecomm masts around the summit, but the highest point as been left for a big concrete cairn.

The descent is easiest done by following road back down to where it turns into a gravel road. Turn right here and follow your ascent route back to the car.

23. May 2009

Final day of Spain this year, and I wanted to have time to both do a mountain and to play tennis and football with the family. I therefore decided to do a mountain which didn't include a lot of driving, and also could be hiked in relatively short time. But I also knew that even though things might look easy on the map the amount of time spent on searching for trail head and/or best route was a big unknown.

This Saturday morning had some small hick-ups along the way towards trail head. First I was stopped in an alco-test by the local police, but it didn't cost me more than a couple of minutes (the result being a healthy 0.0). Finding trail head proved a little more difficult, and after having driven back and forth a few times I stopped and asked a man out exercising his three dogs. My standard first question was the obvious "do you speak English?", and I soon found out that English was indeed his native language. When he added good local knowledge I had found my hero of the day. He explained to me several possible routes, but I have a feeling I ended up mixing two of them into my own route. Anyway, I was soon on my way.

Along the path to the summit there was an adder bathing in the sun, and there were rabbit everywhere. I was also enjoying the sun, and being out early in the morning means that the sun is nice and not boiling your head. At the summit it was a bit windy, and as usual hazy. In addition I had set myself the target of being back with the family by 10am, so I didn't spend much time at the summit before running all the way back to the car. After having found a slightly cumbersome route back to the main roads I was able to make it back to Gran Vista just before 10:00! Perfect start of the day.

Photos 23.05.2009