La Palma, Volcano Route, Ruta de Los Volcanes

Absolutely spectacular and very, very black ashes on Cráter del Duraznero, formed in 1949

The Volcano Route, Ruta de los Volcanes, on beautiful La Palma, is one of the most famous hiking routes of the Canary Islands, the other equally famous one being the ascent of Teide. The latter can be done in various ways (1, 2) though, whereas the Volcano Route is singular, running along the crest of the island north to south. The path forks a little sometimes, but the signs always and unambiguously point to the main path.

I was planning to do it for a while, and decided to go now-now, while the weather is not too hot. Let it be said right away that it is very beautiful, very worth going, but needs reasonable physical form and some preparation.

Spectacular Caldera de Taburiente, the morning clouds are still floating inside

There are some logistical problems with the route, and the most obvious one is that it is linear and quite long, so if you go by car, you’ll have a problem getting back to it. It is one of the reasons why it is recommended to hike the route north to south — there are taxis at the southern end, in Fuencaliente de La Palma. In the north, the route starts at Area Recreativa El Pilar, where a bus used to run in happier times, but not any more, or at least not now. There is no taxi stand either. There are transfers, in theory, to the beginning of the route, but they don’t seem to go every day and cost quite a bit.

Forest along the first part of LP-301 seems to have survived the 2021 eruption quite well

So, being a big fan of public transport and a cheapskate at that, I decided I will try to walk a bit more but do it all by bus. It proved to be doable, and even carried an extra bonus, of which later. The regular Santa Cruz de la Palma — Llanos de Aridane bus brought me to the start of a minor road, LP-301, going south to the real start of the route. Preliminary research told me I was adding seven extra kilometers to my hike, so I was a bit perplexed when I saw a road sign saying “9 km”. It ended up being the expected seven, not sure what’s up with signage on the island.

One of the last glimpses towards the Caldera de Taburiente from the road

LP 301 is narrow, but was quite walkable as there was very little traffic. I am not sure if it is always like that though. It was a weekday, plus the fact that the forecast was showing “scattered showers” probably scared some potential visitors away. At any rate, it is doable, and the views are beautiful, so I think I made the right decision.

There were ongoing roadworks signs and machinery here and there.

After initial three or four kilometers, I found myself walking between black ash piled up on both sides of the road. I was later told that it was the ash emitted by the volcano of 2021, still not officially named, but already having a few unofficial names, one of them Tajogaite. I hope Tajogaite sticks, it has a nice aboriginal ring to it.

The black ash of the volcano, the yellowed pine trees, the walls of the Caldera in the background.
I think it was well worth walking those additional kilometers.

When I was already approaching the start of the hike, maybe a couple of kilometers out, I had my unexpected bonus. The views over black ash dunes with Canary pines still standing opened to the north. Because of the ongoing reparation roadworks after the eruption, there is no stopping on the road, but nobody can prevent a pedestrian from stopping of course. I also saw and spoke to some people working on opening the new hiking paths around the new volcano, the old ones being closed by the eruption. I even saw the beginning of a path, marked by boulders on both sides, but was told that “they won’t let you pass down there yet”. Not that I was going to, my main hike still ahead of me.

One more view back

At the “astronomical viewpoint” Llano del Jable, a kilometer or so out, there were several Island Council workers having their break and feeding a couple of ravens, iconic birds who are always hanging around touristy areas of La Palma. I stopped for a chat and was told that the layer of the ash left on the road was about 20-30 cm and it needed to be cleaned with heavy machinery. It seems like a lot, but it is even more impressive to think that some of the small houses were buried in ash almost completely, so that the layer must be about 3 meters in some places. And this is ash we are talking about, not the lava flow. Awesome.

Pink flowering Cistus, rockroses, in bloom in the undergrowth.
The genus is pyrophyte, so they were probably invigorated by the heat of last year’s volcano

As I finally came up to the start of the route, I hit the only glitch of the day. Although the route had been advertised on social media as re-opened, the Area Recreativa El Pilar was closed for building works. Not sure what they are doing exactly, but there were a few workers and machinery around, and the entrance to the area was closed by red and white tape. Problem was, that’s were I was supposed to start the route. There was no indication as to how to go around the obstacle, or at least I didn’t see one. Of course, I wasn’t about to turn around, so I boldly went where I wasn’t supposed to, to ask somebody what to do. Unfortunately, the guy I asked didn’t really know the answer, but nevertheless sent me back by the road I came, to look for the entrance in the area of “La Barquilla”. There is a dirt track going up, he said, and there you can access the route, he said. Off I went, only to find myself asking a couple standing and chatting by the dirt track and finding that there is no access there. The access was a bit further along the road, after the Area Recreativa, i.e. I needed to make a 180 degree turn once again.

The couple knew what they were talking about; the first guy didn’t. Dunno what’s up with some people willing to give directions without knowing the way. Maybe he was a taxi driver in his past life. At any rate, after adding another kilometer at least to my overall walking I finally was at the beginning of the real hike. And yes, there were indicators of the temporary change of route there. Keep all this in mind, look for official signs and don’t ask random guys as I did. You are always looking for GR 131, direction Fuencaliente.

After a discussion on Twitter, an expert on local weather told me this strange fog is the evaporation of rainwater of days before

The temporary start of the route goes rather steeply up along a cut in the forest covered by black ash. The “normal” route also starts with a sharp ascent, but it goes between tall pine trees and is less exposed. But it was mercifully short at least, and then the path went off to the right almost horizontally, climbing only slightly, first between trees, then over more exposed area.

From this point on, it was plain sailing all the way to Los Canarios in the Fuencaliente municipality.

One of the markings of the long-range path

The hike between Area Recreative and Los Canarios is nearly 18 kilometers. If you wish, you can add another 6 and arrive to the lighthouse of Fuencaliente, but that I wasn’t willing to do, as I’d already added quite a lot to the already long walk. It won’t be hugely difficult though, as the second half of the route is all downhill. This is another reason, I believe, why it is recommended to do the route north to south — this way you have less uphill than downhill. Having said that, the accumulated ascent is still quite respectable, just a bit less than 800 meters. The descent, however, is all of 1500 meters, so you have to think hard(er) if you wish to do the route in reverse.

Mountain scabious, probably Pterocephalus porphyranthus, and fog

All the photos in this post, apart from the very first one, are in chronological order, so you can appreciate just how changeable the weather was. Pink rockroses flowering in the mist lent that additional bit of magic to the landscape.

Magical realism

The path sometimes joins dirt tracks and sometimes runs as proper path, but is well signposted all the way.

Fairy tale forest. Might be one of the Grimm’s tales though

A note on the signposting: all along the path you will find two types of sign — one for the long range GR 131, maroon arrows with off-white lettering, and the other white and green for shorter local routes that happen to coincide with GR 131 at those points. They are usually placed just about 5 meters apart and all point in the correct direction. What I found amusing was the slight difference in distances the two types of signs where showing. Like one will be saying 5.2 km to the mark and another 5.5 km. The difference is not significant, of course, but as they are side by side, it looks rather odd. Add to that the initial confusion with the distance by road (seven vs nine km), and it seems that there are a few competing authorities, all wanting to be different just for the sake of it.

In some places, rectangular makings, like on one of the photos above, were painted just for good measure. So, unless there is absolute zero visibility, there is no way you can stray off the path. You might want to, of course, but that’s your business.

Canary Pines and Clouds rolling on the other side of the crest

In the first two thirds of the route, the long-needled Canary pines, Pinus canariensis, all seemed affected by last year’s eruption. They survived, but the needles are yellow and dry and will eventually fall off. They’ll be just fine though, they are tough cookies.

First obvious crater I saw, Hoyo Negro, also formed in 1949

Because of the clouds always being somewhere close I might have missed some of the views. Every time I looked back, there was a layer of clouds partially covering the landscape. From what I read I understood that on a clear day Caldera de Taburiente would be visible. Well, I didn’t mind, occasional cloud was just fine from my point of view.

One more view of Hoyo Negro

One thing I’ve noted about the route is the color of the ground, where exposed. It’s very dark, sometimes almost black, the first and middle bit of the hike especially. I was lucky with the weather, but in full sun that walk must be like an oven with both the top and bottom heat switched on. Keep this in mind when you go. Lots of water, sunscreen, etc.

This dead pine looks, to me, like a group of people having a rest on their way

Keeping in mind that I probably missed some of the views, the view into the black bowl of Cráter del Duraznero was the most spectacular for me.

Spectacular. The path goes around it to the right, but there is a branch going up along this black slope, which is a possible variation.
Maybe next time

After Hoyo Negro and Duraznero the clouds started to roll in again, so sometimes I could only half-glimpse, half-guess the landscape. There were patches of old forest, each pine standing in a pool of fallen needles. Sometimes there were views opening on each side though.

And sometimes, all the ground was covered by the fallen needles

After the Duraznero there is the last discernible bit of ascent, and then the downhill starts, sometimes gently, sometimes more steep.

Black volcanic soil, orange needles, nice contrast

I believe that by then the other municipality, called Fuencaliente, starts, but don’t quote me on that.

Not sure what the orange streak is, seems a bit too much to be pine needles, so probably soil color variation

The last bit of the path, maybe the six last kilometers, runs inside pine forest. Some of it looked like possible reforestation effort, with pine trees small and fairly regularly placed.

Maybe reforestation, maybe not, not sure.

The reforestation area eventually changed to older forest that ran all the way to Los Canarios.

Taller, older trees and mist again

The very last bit of the walk I did partially runs on old “camino real”, boulder-paved path which was used by men and beasts of burden in the past. This was the only stretch of the path I found disagreeable to walk on. The boulders are old, uneven and worn out, and the incline is quite steep. When you walk, it’s sort of ok, as you can choose where you tread. But, as far as I know, the Transvulcania Ultramarathon runs along the same path. I wonder if there they have their fair share of twisted ankles every time it happens.

Forests close to Los Canarios

And that’s pretty much it. It took me about seven hours to do the whole thing, initial walking on the road and running hither and thither around the Area Recreativa included. My mobile showed me 25.5 kilometers of walking, but it’s not very good with ascents and descents, so it is probably a bit more. The route is available from many sources, here is an example from wikiloc.

More pics from La Palma — here

If you find this post useful and wish to thank me by buying me a coffee, there is hopefully a ko-fi button floating around somewhere.

That’s all, I think. Happy walking.