Lugros

The thermometer drops five degrees between Guix and the final bend into Lugros. At 1,253 m you feel it in your ears before you see the village – the air thins, almond trees give way to Scots pine, and the white houses appear suddenly round a basalt outcrop like ships anchored to the rock.

Lugros is not picturesque in the postcard sense. The streets are narrow, the mortar between stones sometimes crumbles, and the loudest sound is usually a Labrador watching sheep. What pulls walkers off the A-92 is the promise of empty ridges and the knowledge that, on a clear evening, you can spot the lights of Granada forty kilometres away while standing in total darkness.

A Village that Measures Time in Altitude

Summer arrives late and leaves early. Mornings can still touch 30 °C in July, but by ten o’clock the thermals come out of rucksacks and the terraces of Bar La Plaza fill with hikers ordering café con leche in gloves. The bar opens at eight, shuts at three, reopens at six – no point arguing with mountain hours. A toasted serrano sandwich costs €3.20 and the coffee is proper, strong enough to keep you walking the 13.5 km forest loop that starts two kilometres back down the road.

That track is unsigned; look for the sharp left bend where the tarmac widens and a dirt spur heads right between two boulders. Sat-nav likes to deposit people in the dry riverbed below, so set the odometer when you leave the A-4100 and start hunting after 8.4 km. Parking is informal – if the verge is full, continue to the village and walk down the tarmac; the gradient is gentle and adds only twenty minutes.

The forest path is easy to follow but not idiot-proof. Red-and-white waymarks appear on stones every few hundred metres, yet a couple of junctions are unmarked. The safest rule: keep the valley on your left on the way out, on your right when you return. Mid-week you might meet one Spanish couple and a pair of German trail-runners; at Easter the same path feels like the Cumbria Way on a bank holiday, so start before nine.

What Passes for Civilisation

Lugros has two bars, one grocery that doubles as the bread counter, and a parish church whose sixteenth-century doorway is worth a two-minute stop – mainly to read the stone coat of arms chipped by Napoleonic soldiers who used the building as a stable in 1810. Inside, the font is still stained with iron mould where horses drank. Nobody has bothered to scrub it off; the story is considered decoration enough.

There is no cash machine. The grocery accepts cards for purchases over €10, but the bars prefer cash and will shrug if you proffer a €50 note. Fill your wallet in Guadix before you climb. Petrol is the same story: the last pumps are on the ring-road around Guadix, 25 minutes down the mountain. Running the fuel light on these bends is a nervy business.

Accommodation does not exist. The village is too small even for a rural casa. Most visitors base themselves in Guadix – the cave-hotel Cuevas Abuelo José is the British favourite, its underground rooms keeping a constant 19 °C year-round. From there you can be on the Lugros trail-head by nine, walk until two, and still reach Granada for late-afternoon tapas if you are squeezing the province into a week.

Eating Without Show

Forget tasting menus. The grocery sells local Trevélez ham vacuum-packed in 100 g sachets for €4.80, good for trail sandwiches. If you want a sit-down meal, Bar La Plaza will stretch to papas a lo pobre – potatoes fried in olive oil with soft onion and green pepper, vegetarian and filling. Order a ración to share; portions are mountain-generous. The other bar, El Rincón, opens only at weekends and specialises in cordero al ajillo – garlic lamb so tender it slides off the bone. A plate costs €9 and comes with bread you tear rather than slice.

Sweet teeth do better in someone’s kitchen than in a café. If you are lucky enough to be around during the matanza in January, you might be offered a slice of fresh morcilla sweetened with cinnamon and orange peel. Politeness requires you accept; the flavour is closer to Christmas pudding than to blood sausage, and vegetarians have been known to weaken.

Weather That Can Kill a Schedule

Spring and autumn are the reliable seasons. April brings almond blossom at 1,000 m while snow still streaks the peaks behind. October colours the encinas copper and reduces the thermometer to walking-perfect 18 °C. Both periods attract Spanish school parties on Thursday afternoons – plan around them if you want solitude.

Winter is serious. The road is gritted only as far as the village; beyond that, the forest track turns to axle-deep slush after one heavy fall. A dusting of snow photographs beautifully on the church roof, but it also knocks out the mobile signal and closes Bar La Plaza when the owner can’t get his 4×4 up from Guadix. If you do come, carry a sleeping bag in the car and tell someone your route. The Guardia Civil post is 35 minutes away and they have better things to do than dig out tourists who thought Andalucía meant everlasting sunshine.

Summer hiking demands the alpine start. By eleven the sun ricochets off the white limestone and shade is non-existent until the pine belt at 1,500 m. Take three litres of water for the full loop; streams marked on old maps vanished in last decade’s drought. The compensation is the night: sit on the church steps at ten and you’ll need a fleece while the provincial capital below still swelters in 28 °C.

Leaving Without a Fridge Magnet

There is no souvenir shop. The closest thing to a memento is the rubber-stamp in the church porch that pilgrims on the Ruta Nasrid use to prove they walked here. Press it onto the back of your map if you carry one; nobody will charge you.

Drive out slowly. The A-4100 drops 600 m in eight kilometres and the local shepherd drives his flock up the tarmac at dusk. You will meet them round a bend, forty sheep filling the road like fuzzy speed bumps, the dog unconcerned by your ABS. Wait, window down, and you will hear the bells fade into the pines as the lights of the Granada plain flicker on 1,200 m below. Then decide whether to tell anyone else about it.