Los Reales de Sierra Bermeja: the hike above Estepona

The signposted trails, in figures

Los Realillos is the summit path of the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government: linear, rated media (moderate), with frequent shade and no permit needed.¹ It starts beside the summit, 1,451 m by the survey of the IGN, Spain’s national mapping agency,² and runs downhill to the Plazoleta de Genalguacil, so the walk back to the car is the same path uphill: 3.6 km there and back, with the 306 m to climb on the return. Those are the 2022 sheet’s figures; older Junta pages give 1.7 km and up to an hour.³⁴

The Paseo de los Pinsapos is the gentle one: 2.8 km and an hour one way, rated baja (easy), with abundant shade on the north face.⁵ It starts at a sharp bend about 2 km up the track from Peñas Blancas and runs downhill past the Plazoleta de Genalguacil, where a ceramic wall carries a 1919 poem by Federico García Lorca, to a forest track near a road.⁵ Downhill out means uphill back: 281 m between its highest and lowest points.⁵ For a quarter of an hour’s stroll, the Mirador de Salvador Guerrero is 400 m from its own car park.⁶

The full-day route is the PR-A 164, signposted by the Mancomunidad de Municipios de la Costa del Sol Occidental, the joint body of the western Costa del Sol’s town halls, from Estepona’s new cemetery to the top: 6,900 m and four hours one way, 1,370 m between its lowest and highest points, rated alta (hard) in its 2011 walking guide.⁷ The first hour, under 2 km to a clay-pigeon range, suits anyone. The three hours above it are for walkers with mountain experience: partly off any path, waymarked with paint on stones and pylons, and hard going in fog.⁷ The sheet suggests arranging a lift down from the refuge near the top.⁷

Getting to the start

From Estepona, take the road towards Jubrique up to the Puerto de Peñas Blancas, about 15 km.² The Junta’s trail sheets number it MA-557, its viewpoint sheet MA-8301, and at the pass the Paraje Natural is signposted to the left.¹⁶ From there a narrow asphalt track climbs to Los Reales; the Junta describes it as in poor condition on its final stretch.³ The Pinsapos start is at the bend after about 2 km,⁵ the clearing with the refuge 4.4 km up.²

Neither the Realillos nor the Pinsapos start has a car park, only room for about three cars each; the Salvador Guerrero viewpoint has one.³⁵⁶ Buses go as far as Estepona and no further.³

Water: what you carry

The sheets name no spring or tap on these paths or at the recreation area: bring drinking water from the car, as the Realillos sheet asks.¹ FEDME, Spain’s mountaineering federation, puts the minimum at 1.5 litres a person a day, and a good deal more in summer.⁸

A protected area: what is not allowed

Every Junta sheet for these paths lists the same rules: no fires, no picking plants, no catching animals, no taking rocks, minerals or fossils, keep to the marked path and take your rubbish to the bins.¹ Andalusia allows fire to prepare food only in places built for it, all year, and from 1 June to 15 October bans it outright on forest land and in the 400 m around it, picnic areas included.⁹¹⁰ The stove stays at home.

The Junta’s pages ask you to check for hunting before you go.⁴ For a closure, the state of the track or a night out, ask the Junta’s office in Málaga, on the number the 2022 sheet gives: 607 948 894.¹

The pinsapo, the Spanish fir, is the reason for the Paraje Natural. Here it grows on peridotite, a dark rock that rises to 1,451 m only 8 km from the sea, and this is its only population on that rock: about 90 hectares in four patches.¹⁶ The 2021 Los Reales fire reached the old stands only at their edges; the young pinsapos growing under the pines took the worst of it, by the Junta’s 2022 summary.¹¹

When to go

The Mancomunidad’s sheet recommends any season except summer at the hours of strongest sun.⁷ Cloud rising up the slope or thick fog often covers the summits, the Junta’s viewpoint sheet warns.⁶ AEMET, Spain’s weather service, has no mountain forecast for Sierra Bermeja; read its seven-day forecast for Estepona, or the one for Genalguacil that the Junta’s trail pages carry.¹²⁴ Nearby, La Concha from Refugio de Juanar is a ridge walk above Marbella and the Torrecilla hike covers the Sierra de las Nieves; higher still, Mulhacén over two days takes a night on the mountain.

What to pack for a half day

The summit path and the pinsapos are each a morning and need no pouch. A bag of fruit and your water do it: Strawberries or Mango, eaten dry from the bag, with no water of their own. If it’s new to you, freeze-dried fruit explains what it is.

The PR-A 164 means four hours up and lunch at the top. Thai Beef & Prawn Noodle Salad, a salad meant to be eaten cold, takes about 20 minutes with cold water. Most of our Large pouches can be made cold, in 20–30 minutes depending on the meal; Porcini Mushroom Risotto needs hot water, so leave it for home. Cold, meat keeps a little more bite and some liquid may stay in the pouch: stir it through. The times, pouch by pouch, are in freeze-dried meals with cold water.

A morning and a long day: weight, water and energy

Pouch	Net weight	Water	Energy
Strawberries	40 g	Eaten dry	138 kcal
Mango	40 g	Eaten dry	149 kcal
Thai Beef & Prawn Noodle SaladLarge	200 g	520 ml	826 kcal

A morning and a long day: weight, water and energy

• Strawberries

  Net weight

  40 g

  Water

  Eaten dry

  Energy

  138 kcal

• Mango

  Net weight

  40 g

  Water

  Eaten dry

  Energy

  149 kcal

• Thai Beef & Prawn Noodle SaladLarge

  Net weight

  200 g

  Water

  520 ml

  Energy

  826 kcal

The empty bags go down with you.

From our range

Strawberries

Dry, light and eaten from the bag: 40 g, and no water needed.

€6.90€172.50/kgHear from us before the shop opensSee the strawberries