Armed with road map, guide book and walking map I tried to explore these. Unfortunately this is far from easy and I don’t recommend them for holidaymakers with only two weeks – there are better things already described and the Montes are best left to those living there.
There are three reasons for this. Possibly the main one is that they are heavily wooded and (I think) all the paths are on forestry tracks so that there is far less interest than elsewhere – we found a very nice camp site though and clearly some parts are popular.
The worst point however is finding them. From the road map the (wrongly numbered) road to them leaves the Malaga motorway by-pass the stop after the main Granada turn off (going east). It doesn’t – in fact it is not connected to the Motorway at all. From Malaga centre there are absolutely no signs to it (or any town on its route) so, in the end, we took the motorway towards Granada and turned off to Colmenar and tried to find the walks heading back south.
Which provides the third reason. i.e. they are hard to find, although if you see a parking place anywhere with a gated track leading off from nearby then that will provide a walk of some sort. By this method we found walk 7 (Caril de Marujan) and a little further south the very obvious Fuente de la Reina from near which three walks start. With more time (and better Spanish) we could probably have found others but, to be honest, I prefer to do other things rather than walk on big tracks through woods.
Istan - Rio Molinos
Salto de Lobo
