Crossing Sierra Nevada by Mulhacèn and Veleta on a road bike
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 63.45 mi
- Elevation gain
- 11,211 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Experts only
- Elevation loss
- 10,295 ft
- Max elevation
- 10,545 ft
- TrailRank
- 51
- Min elevation
- 1,459 ft
- Trail type
- One Way
- Time
- 11 hours 49 minutes
- Coordinates
- 13316
- Uploaded
- October 16, 2017
- Recorded
- October 2017
near Órjiva, Andalucía (España)
Viewed 1752 times, downloaded 22 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
16 October 2017 I cycled from Órjiva (400 m above sea level) across Sierra Nevada, passing by Mulhacèn and Veleta and descending to the Granada-area.
The views are breathtaking - and so are the climbs and the experience all in all. I enjoyed it and had a fantastic day, but I will still use most of the text to make you aware of the challenges.
The path is NOT suitable for road bikes. Countless debries threaten to rip the tyres, and larger rocks practically block the road. I'm quite fund of taking my road bike on stretches on gravel road, but in this case I had to walk something like 5 km of the highest 25 km, starting at approximately 2800 m. Mountain bikers on wikiloc generally rate this route as difficult or very difficult, and they generally skip the first 1800 m of the climb.
Through research before and after, I found that there has been a regular road (carretera) GR-141 connecting Veleta and Capileira in the years 1966-1999. As the area was made a national park, the road was closed for motorized traffic and left to deteriorate. Today it's merely a path full of debris, and there are no signs of asphalt (I doubt that there has ever been any).
I attempted to do the crossing on 31 May 2003. Information was less accessible by that time, but I had the impression that one could take a bus all the way to a parking site next to Pico de Veleta, and I reckoned therefore that this part should be easy to cycle, and that from this spot I'd be able to recognize the road on the South side. In reality I ended up traversing (in my Carnac Tempo road bike shoes) through thick snow on the North side, expecting there'd be no snow on the South side. But close to the top I met two fully mountain-equipped Belgian hikers, who had given up due to massive amounts on the South side.
This time I had checked live cams: No snow. Weather forecasts: No snow. And I had a GPS-track available offline on my phone with enough battery for a whole day. I had even seen a few photos of the "road's" condition. Finally I decided to climb from the South: Even though climbing on gravel should be harder, I reckoned that I'd benefit more from a much faster downhill. All this worked out.
Mind: The stretch from the parking on the South side to the skiing slopes on the North side (25 km apart) are very isolated. All in all I met one couple close to the parking and a group of three between Veleta and Mulhacèn. But all the way from Capileira to Pradollano (50 km apart, prepare for 10 hours) expect to be on your own. I didn't see any water sources above 2500 m. There is obviously no mobile coverage.
When you finally return to paved road by Veleta, note that it's still 10 km tiring downhill before you reach Pradollano, and it's about an hour descend more before you reach Granada.
The views are breathtaking - and so are the climbs and the experience all in all. I enjoyed it and had a fantastic day, but I will still use most of the text to make you aware of the challenges.
The path is NOT suitable for road bikes. Countless debries threaten to rip the tyres, and larger rocks practically block the road. I'm quite fund of taking my road bike on stretches on gravel road, but in this case I had to walk something like 5 km of the highest 25 km, starting at approximately 2800 m. Mountain bikers on wikiloc generally rate this route as difficult or very difficult, and they generally skip the first 1800 m of the climb.
Through research before and after, I found that there has been a regular road (carretera) GR-141 connecting Veleta and Capileira in the years 1966-1999. As the area was made a national park, the road was closed for motorized traffic and left to deteriorate. Today it's merely a path full of debris, and there are no signs of asphalt (I doubt that there has ever been any).
I attempted to do the crossing on 31 May 2003. Information was less accessible by that time, but I had the impression that one could take a bus all the way to a parking site next to Pico de Veleta, and I reckoned therefore that this part should be easy to cycle, and that from this spot I'd be able to recognize the road on the South side. In reality I ended up traversing (in my Carnac Tempo road bike shoes) through thick snow on the North side, expecting there'd be no snow on the South side. But close to the top I met two fully mountain-equipped Belgian hikers, who had given up due to massive amounts on the South side.
This time I had checked live cams: No snow. Weather forecasts: No snow. And I had a GPS-track available offline on my phone with enough battery for a whole day. I had even seen a few photos of the "road's" condition. Finally I decided to climb from the South: Even though climbing on gravel should be harder, I reckoned that I'd benefit more from a much faster downhill. All this worked out.
Mind: The stretch from the parking on the South side to the skiing slopes on the North side (25 km apart) are very isolated. All in all I met one couple close to the parking and a group of three between Veleta and Mulhacèn. But all the way from Capileira to Pradollano (50 km apart, prepare for 10 hours) expect to be on your own. I didn't see any water sources above 2500 m. There is obviously no mobile coverage.
When you finally return to paved road by Veleta, note that it's still 10 km tiring downhill before you reach Pradollano, and it's about an hour descend more before you reach Granada.
Waypoints
Photo
3,038 ft
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