2552 ft
4.9 mi
2.30 hrs
5479 ft
Grutas de García, Reserva Sierra el Fraile y San Miguel, García
2552 ft
4.9 mi
2.30 hrs
5479 ft
This tour is a tradition in the town of García and the views it gives you to El Sapo, Pico el Cuadrado and Pico San Miguel are unique.
To get to the starting point of the village, you must travel by car to the Grutas de García. Follow a dirt road for about 7-10 minutes. Passing the Las Grutas parking lot, heading north, just after a small ford, a yellow feather has been growing lately. There are those who say that a little further on from this point there is a person taking care of them and a tip can be given to avoid misunderstandings. What we noticed is that a lot of people pick it up on the weekends without any problem and there really isn't anyone looking out for it.
Once you pass the yellow plume, following about 500 m of dirt road, you can find the beginning of the sidewalk. Note: with a van it is possible to reach the point right where the trail begins; with a low-rise car, you'll have to leave it where we started this Wikiloc, which is next to a small station. Several cars leave it here and it's safe.
Once you pass the pen and get to where the sidewalk begins, there is no cost for parking as of the date this review is written (January 2, 2022).
It is very helpful to carry with canes, first aid kit, knife, extra battery, lamp, whistle, thermal blanket.
The sidewalk or path is very well marked with strips of various bright colors (both the one on this route that was engraved, and the one on the way to the left at the beginning). In both cases, you have to be aware of the slats for the first kilometer and a half already entering the mountain, since there are some ways of taking roads that are not. In general, the path is marked and trodden (very busy), after Mesa de Pinos to the Mirador del Fraile, the wooded road is actually a little more wasted; you also have to be very alert to the slats and rely on Wikiloc.
This route has a level 4 physical difficulty based on our difficulty classification metric. The trail has a very similar average slope per segment, meaning that the slope is almost the same for each kilometer traveled, although obviously in some sections it changes. If we divide the total ascent route into 3 sections to get to the Mirador, we could say that the one with the highest slope is the second. On average, they can be from 1:15 to 1:50 p.m. (only ascent to the Mirador).