Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Yeste it runs 218 km to Yeste; allow about 5 h 16 of riding. It goes by way of Zona 1, Cañaica del Calar l, Zona 2 and back through Cañaica del Calar l. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Guijarral
Spain's largest protected area is the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas, and it spreads across a long stretch of wooded mountains in Jaén and Albacete. The Guijarral lies on its northern edge, in country close to Yeste, Segura de la Sierra and Orcera, where black pines and holm oaks cover steep slopes and rivers cut gorges between. Here, among rock walls, shelters preserve paintings, part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art listed by UNESCO in 1998, and the sites of the area, such as Zona 1 and the Collado de la Cruz, tell of hunting peoples who lived in these mountains long ago.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Guijarral is where the day begins. Next is Zona 1.
2. Zona 1
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as you can get in mainland Spain. The village lies in the southwestern corner of Albacete province, close to the borders of Murcia, Granada and Jaén, in a high, wild landscape of limestone ridges, pine forest and deep river valleys. The area is known for two things: walnuts, which grow in huge old trees along the Taibilla river and are celebrated in local cooking, and one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric rock art in the Iberian Peninsula, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin. The generic label Zona 1 points at the hills near the village, where rock shelters with painted figures are scattered across the cliffs.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Zona 1 comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cañaica del Calar l.
3. Cañaica del Calar l
Very few people get here. The Cañaica del Calar lies in the far north-west of the region of Murcia, near the border with Albacete and Andalusia, in a wild landscape of limestone plateaus, pine forests and deep valleys around Moratalla and Nerpio. The calar is the local word for a limestone plateau, and the rock shelters on its edges hold prehistoric paintings in the Levantine style, part of the World Heritage rock art of the Mediterranean. The area around Nerpio is one of the richest in Spain for rock art.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Cañaica del Calar l. Next is Zona 2.
4. Zona 2
A label like Zona 2 tells you that someone with a clipboard and a map divided this country into sectors, and numbered them, and then walked every one. That is how the rock art of the Sierra del Segura was found: slowly, valley by valley, by teams who recorded dozens of shelters around Nerpio and the high country towards Jaén. The Zona 2 stop is seven kilometres from Nerpio, in hills of pine and juniper at a bit over a thousand metres, and it is a good example of the way this part of Spain hides things in plain view.