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SPAIN | Madrid, Spain Travel Guide
Thursday, April 25, 2024
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Sierra de Guadarrama
The Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains
Skirting the northern boundary of the province, the Sierra de Guadarrama Mountains have long been a mixed blessing for the capital city and its inhabitants, who are stranded on the high plain just an hour’s ride south. In the winter, fierce northern gales sweep down from the peaks and cast a freezing spell on the city; in the summer, the cool Atlantic currents meet the impenetrable granite rise of the Guadarrama and dissipate, leaving the capital city just beyond in a swelter, what the 19th-century British travel writer Richard Ford aptly characterized as “tres meses de invierno y nueve de infiero,” (three months of winter and nine of hell).
The only viable escape for the city-dwellers is to head to the very mountains that cause so much consternation. The Madrileños manage this in droves, crowding the fledgling ski resorts and the numerous hiking trails in the valleys to savor the cool mountain air and open vistas in leisure or in undertaking one of the numerous outdoor sports common in the area.
The Sierra de Guadarrama occupies part of the Sistema Central mountain range that dissects the country’s expansive Meseta Central upon which Madrid is seated. It stretches from the Sierra de Ayllón in the east to the Sierra de Peña de Francia in the west. The Guadarrama, which rises to its peak at Peñalara (2,430 m/7,970 feet), can be roughly divided into three zones. First are the Siete Picos (Seven Peaks) in the center, which is the most extensively connected by road and rail and thus heavily populated with outdoor enthusiasts. Then there is the Sierra de la Mujer Muerta (the dead woman) to the west. To the east is a cluster of rises comprised of La Najarra, Cuerda Larga and Cabezas de Hierro.
Where it is not barren and rocky, the Sierra is rich with pine forests along its northern and southern slopes, dotted with holly and yew trees and colored by wild roses, toadflax, Spanish bluebells, lavender and vast carpets of thyme. Rivers course throughout the region, abounding with trout and attracting otter, badgers, boar, deer, the plentiful fox and scurrying lagarto verdinegro (green-black lizard), while countless birds nest here, among them brown vultures, Spanish and imperial eagles, kites, hawks and the ever-present white stork. The latter can’t be missed roosting in great, frizzy nests atop the church tower of San Sebastián in Cercedilla.
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