Sierras of Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama Natural Park

The range is named after a tree that has almost gone. Tejeda comes from tejo, yew, and these slopes once carried yew forest; what survives is a small relic stand, reckoned the southernmost on the Iberian Peninsula. The pines that cover the mountains now are the replacement, and the white-grey ridges above them are dolomitic marble.

A wall between two provinces

The Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama ranges run west to east and form a genuine barrier: La Axarquía in Málaga on one side, the Alhama district of western Granada on the other. Declared a natural park in 1999, it covers 40,657 hectares of sharp ridges, steep slopes and deep ravines, with thirty-four named peaks. La Maroma is the summit at around 2,065 metres and the highest point in Málaga province; Navachica and Cerro del Lucero follow. The climb to La Maroma is a Málaga rite of passage — a long, near-continuous ascent, and icy enough in winter to be genuinely dangerous.

Marble, limestone and holes in the ground

The Sierra Almijara holds one of Spain’s most important concentrations of dolomitic marble, and as it erodes into pale gravel it gives the range its characteristic grey-and-white look. The Sierra Tejeda is mainly limestone, weathered into plunging cliffs and steep-sided ravines — locally called cahorros — and riddled with caves. That karst is why this park contains more caves than almost anywhere in Málaga province, including the Nerja cave system where five boys found prehistoric skeletons in 1959, plus the Sima de la Maroma near the summit and the Fajara caves by Canillas de Aceituno. Some of the underlying gneiss and quartzite is over 300 million years old.

What lives here

Aleppo, Scots and stone pine dominate, with holm oak, gall oak and Pyrenean oak mixed in, and maple on the shaded slopes. The relic yew stand is the botanical prize. The park holds one of the largest Iberian ibex populations in Spain — often visible without leaving the road — along with red squirrels and deer. Raptors are the birding draw: golden, Bonelli’s, booted and short-toed eagles, peregrines, goshawks. On the fringes sit the Moorish white villages the park is inseparable from — Frigiliana, Cómpeta, Alcaucín, Salares, Alhama de Granada — and the western edge of Granada province was among the last holdouts of the Nasrid kingdom.

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