06. - 31.01.2022
Málaga - Baza
The first idea was to hike the GR7 via the southern variante to the north, but the agricultural intensively used Murcia seemed uninteresting.
Since I started in Málaga, I walked my own route through the Málaga Mountain Nature Park to the GR7.
In the Sierra Nevada, I partly followed the GR240, which is a little higher up than the GR7, but also made up my own routes.
From Baza, I took a bus in the afternoon to Pozo Alcon, which cost about 4 €.
I finished my hike in the Sierra Cazorla by hiking the circular main route of the GR247 and then back to Baza.
Trails and marking:
The trails I hiked were mainly on wide (dirt) roads, even in Natural Parks. Smaller paths were rather rare and best in the Cazorla Natural Park.
Hiking was generally easy and rarely steep, so it is suited for everybody.
Making up own routes based on OSM (like maps.me) can be frustrating due to private lands, high fences and non existing trails!
GR7: only partly marked and I wouldn't want to hike it without map or GPS!
GR240: well marked
GR247: very well marked!
Environment/landscape:
Apart from natural parks with lots of pine trees, Spain is an agriculturally intensively used land, with olive, almond and citrus trees. That can be an advantage, when fruits are ripe, but generally I prefer natural landscapes and I learned how loud the olive harvest can be in modern days!
Wildlife:
The wildlife was especially rich in the Cazorla Natural Park, with lots of vultures, deer, wild pigs, ibex etc.
In the trees there were lots of nests of pine processionary moths and there were some very slow and dead caterpillars on the ground. Despite the potential danger of their irritating hairs, they didn't pose a problem.
Sleeping:
I slept zero nights in a hotel, hostel or camp ground, but wild camped every night. This can be a bit tricky in agricultural areas, especially during the time of the olive harvest.
There are a few shelters/refugios in the Sierra Nevada and Sierra Cazorla, which were partly open. For the GR7, www.frankrevelo.com has information about potential accommodation in villages.
Resupply:
There are plenty of options for resupply along the way and I never carried more than 5 days of food.
BUT stores in villages have a long lunch break (usually 2-5 p.m.) which is a thing to keep in mind!
Water:
I never carried more than 1.5 L of water. I found enough fountains (nearly every village has one) and creeks, although some fountains were turned off and some creeks were frozen.
BUT that was in January, where temperatures were very low!
Weather:
I was lucky with the weather, as it was usually dry and sunny during the day, but nights were long and freezing cold, so I was happy about my warm winter sleeping bag.
Advantages of a winter hike:
The low water consumption and the absence of annoying insects were certainly an advantage. In addition, there were rarely any people and I had the mountains to myself. Apart from weekends, when there were some day hikers and people in popular places like Cazorla, it was a rather lone hike - just the way I like it ;)
Dogs:
After my bad experience in Romania, dogs will be a big point for me now...
Although most dogs in Spain are barking like crazy, they are behind fences or chained. Dogs roaming around were usually more scared of me, than I was of them :) Rarely did I had to pick up a stone (or pretend to)
