Estimated net time	1½-2 hours
Difficulty	No difficulties. The route is done on mountain road and path.
Drinking water	No access to running water.
GSM coverage	Coverage throughout the route (May 2012).
Parking	Room for a few cars at trail head.
Start height	1013 metres
Vertical metres	280 metres for the roundtrip.
Trip distance	5.9 km
GPS-file	X
Map		Google Interactive Map
Route photo	Start of service road leading to La Capilla trail head.   La Capilla trail head.

From Alicante drive west on road A-31 to north of Novelda. Turn left and drive towards Monovar, and continue approximately 20 km west towards Pinoso on road Cv-83. In the round-about east of Pinoso where road Cv-83 exits right follow Cv-83 1.0 km to the next round-about. Take the Cv-836 exit, and drive 12.1 km. Exit right onto a road signed by an amber sign saying "Coto Salinas". Drive this road 1.6 km, and turn right through a green metal gate. Drive this road uphill 2.8 km to an old stone building, and park on the right hand side of the road.

Start hiking by following the road uphill 470 metres, and turn sharp right onto another service road. Make sure you fork left after another 90 metres, and then continue 1.0 km on the service road up to the building at the end of the road. From here follow the path across the small top and down into the saddle towards south. Climb up from the saddle on an obvious path, and follow the path towards left when the terrain levels out. The summit is located at the end of this path, approximately 800 metres towards north-east, and is marked by several proper cairns.

Descend by reversing your ascent route.

07. May 2012

I was a bit restricted on what hiking I could do this Monday during our Spain holiday week, having meetings at both ends of the day. But I figured out I could safely hike La Capilla between the meetings, assuming I wouldn't mess up too badly on either the driving or the route finding.

Finding trail head proved to be much easier than expected, thanks to me managing to interpret a road sign correctly. The hike proved a little more tricky, and I ended up following the wrong mountain road a few hundred metres before realising I had probably taken the wrong direction. Hence I had to turn back, and from here on everything worked out well.

At the end of the service road I was surprised to find a person sitting inside the building. When I passed the house he came out, and we had a brief chat, which unfortunately was very limited given that his English was almost as poor as my Spanish. He did however manage to point me in the direction of the hidden summit, but there was no point in me trying to find out what he was doing up there. Given his official clothes I assume he was some kind of guard for this wild life area, or maybe even a fire watch.

From the end of the road I continued on path to the summit, from where I had a nice view all around. And since it was a nice and sunny day I spent quite a while at the summit, including trying to identify all the mountains I had been to.
Photos 07.05.2012