Pico Torrecilla

The experience

I set off at around six in the morning for the Los Quejigales Recreation Area. It was my first real drive into mountain terrain: darkness, dense fog and only a few metres of visibility accompanied the approach. The barrier was closed, so I had to park around three kilometres before the usual starting point, adding roughly six kilometres to the full route before I had even begun.

In daylight, the forest became denser while the trail grew faint in places. The mist, damp air and falling temperature heightened the sense of entering a completely unfamiliar environment. When I drifted a few metres away from the line, I checked the offline track and compass, regained the correct direction and continued without rushing.

Higher up, I heard voices. Four hikers were disoriented in an area where the path almost disappeared and they did not have a suitable offline track. They asked me for the direction and we decided to continue towards the summit together, turning a solo outing into a shared ascent for much of the climb.

The cold and damp intensified, followed by drizzle and frost, with temperatures of around 3°C higher up. Some members of the group were dressed inadequately for those conditions, so I handed over a waterproof layer even though it meant getting wet myself. We continued, but with the experience I have gained since then, I know that stopping and returning would have been the prudent decision for part of the group.

The final rocky section required slow progress over wet ground in poor visibility. Reaching Torrecilla was the high point of the day: my first mountain summit, with a sense of achievement inseparable from everything that had happened during the ascent.

We returned together as far as Pozo de Nieve de Tolox. From there, I took a different route to discover another part of Sierra de las Nieves. The forest, rain and mist wrapped the return in an almost unreal silence; reaching the car brought my first true mountain experience to a close, without me yet knowing how much would follow. The first of many.

Route highlights

• First summit and first true mountain experience
• Woodland, rain and mist in Sierra de las Nieves
• A shared ascent with four hikers met on the route