The summits of the Park leave an unbeatable mark on the memory of those who visit them. Among them are the Empanadas (ceiling of the Park with its 2107 m altitude), the Cabañas, the Banderillas, the Blanquillo, the Yelmo, the Almorchón, the Palomas, the Gilillo and the Rayal, among others.

The tops are an exceptional ecosystem, due to the special adaptation that living beings must suffer. Over 1800 m of altitude, a number of climatic, edaphic, orographic and geographical conditions match that make its vegetation unique. The first thing we'll see is that there are no forests. At this point the wind, the very low temperatures, the snow and the little soil available make the development of the trees impossible. The vegetation is reduced to woody matas attached to the ground with a motilated look. They are the piornal and other smaller, whitish rakes. This vegetation is called whitish.

So between blancizales and piornals have settled the summits of the Park. These blanks are made up of species that are covered with a white toment, to protect themselves from the high radiation that exists at that height in the summer and from the strong winter frost. Among them are notable bethic and local endemisms without a vernacular name such as Hormatophylla baetica, Andryala agardii, Santonina elegans, Convolvulus boissieri, Arenaria tetrachetra, Scorzonera albicans, Pterocephalus spatulathus, among others.

The piornal is made up of a series of plant species with an igloo-shaped look to support the wind and the weight of the snow. Among the species of piorns are the blue piorno or cambrón (Erinacea anthyllis), the old scrapes (Hormathophylla spinosa), the fine pyrone (Echinospartum boissieri) and others without a vernacular name such as the Astragalus nevadensis nevadensis and the Genista longes. Among these two formations are the lastonar, plant formation dominated by a gramline, the laston (Helictotrichum filifoliun), which colonizes the most degraded areas of the high mountain and the summits of the Park.

A much more comfortable option than the two we suggest is to climb to the Yelmo summit, accessible by car. The ecological and landscape characteristics are similar, and the views are extraordinary, but the ease of access is paid with the inevitable landscape degradation of the buildings of repeaters, antennas, etc. installed at the summit.

LOCATION OF THE EMPLOYMENT

Let's go to the summits selected for this section, one of them is the summit of the summits, El Empanadas, which with its 2107 m altitude is the roof of the Park. To get up you need to have good physical form and take time. We must approach by vehicle, by forest track to the tornadoes of Rambla Seca. If we come from the saw of Cazorla, we will reach the road of the Navy of San Pedro, to a control that has a fenced with a door. We open it and a few meters later we find the aforementioned tornips on our right. If we arrive from the Segura saw, we must cross the fields of Hernán Pelea to Rambla Seca. Next to the tornajos comes a track, already in worse condition, that we must do walking if we do not have an SUV. Through it we go into a valley in whose end we find the ruins of the old forest house of the Cabrilla. From here, already necessarily on foot, we will follow the stream that passes by and we go back. Soon we started going up a ramp. When we reach the hill we will continue to climb to our right, until we reach the top. All the way up we will see how the pineapple of larices or salgareños is being made clear to disappear and an impressive piornal, with rareras and rake juniper, will accompany us to the summit.

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To reach this point, less effort is needed, but it does not lose its beauty. The Crow Stone (1820 m) is in the Calar de Gila. To access, we must take the lead from the birth of the Segura to Cañada de la Cruz and follow it to the entrance to this enclave. This track is surrounding the northeastern part of the Cañada until you reach a crossing with a track to our right. The first crossing that we are on the right is the track that takes us to Hoya Maranza to Hoya Espinosilla and to the road that links Pontones with Santiago de la Sword. This track has a little over 6 km, but we won't go through it all. Once at it, about 3 km away, we find a crossing to our right that leads us to a small aerodrome, where they can land planes. It is easy to detect, and once in it, in a south direction we are raised a rock as a monolith, which is the Crow Stone.

Location: to the southeast of the city centre, in Cerro Peñalta.
Distance: 3.5 km.
Half: on foot.
Access route: first take the Honda Bridge road and turn right along the Peñalta road.

The slopes of the Yelmo are covered by dense pine trees, as well as some oak trees and mixed forests of both species. The complaint is abundant and at some points you will also be surprised by beautiful maples. In the summit area, often visited by the mountain goats, only the piornos and some small, twisted larix pine survive.

The Yelmo is the epicenter of the International Air Festival, an original event that brings together thousands of people, from the neighbors of the villages closest to pilots from different countries, attracted by many different activities.

The summit is accessible by car by a narrow asphalt forest track that is accessed from the village of Robledo, near Cortijos Nuevos. We strongly recommend you to walk up at least the last miles, because you can appreciate the beauty and purity of the environment much more intensively.

You can also access from the area of the Campillo, on the opposite side, next to the road JF-7016. This access is based on an altitude above the first and also has an asphalt track, although we recommend walking along the signposted route PR-A 194, whose 3 km of one way we will travel in about an hour and twenty minutes.

When Franco passed through Lopera in the 1950s he ordered that new houses be demolished and built for his tenants in the Pradillo Guijoso neighborhood, the front of the first body was finally only demolished. Some are currently abandoned and others have been occupied by Lopera's neighbours by keeping firewood or coal inside.

Location: West of the city centre.
Distance: 7.5 km.
Medium: In vehicle tourism and on foot.
Access route: by road and mountain road.

The predominant indigenous vegetation is the oaks and moans, low mountain of rosemary, lentisco and sabina. Some well-known routes are the Carchelejo-Cazall- Convent, Carchel to Carchelejo by the Barrio de la Grilla or the ascension to the Cueva del Puerto de las Palomas. On the urban periphery of the two cores there are several recreational areas, such as the Parque de la Fuente, the Haza de la Widow and the sports facilities of Carchelejo and Cárchel.

If you already know Covadonga and then discover this place, you will be amazed at the aesthetic, mystical and historical parallels between this and a place in the Cangas Valley, where it is said that Don Pelayo began the war against Muslims, and that, at that time, he was known as Cave Dominica. There are those who consider this overwhelming space as the Covadonga Andaluza and, according to tradition, here appeared the Virgin of Tiscar, an image exalted after the fall of the Arab fortress in the 14th century. The building is less majestic than the Asturian, but the sacred cave...

The enclave must have been sacred already from remote times. Tradition speaks of an appearance in the Water Cave, which is actually a closed cannon and sculpted by the Tícar Arroyo. This tradition also tells that it was already venerated at a time when the Arabs kept a square they considered unexpugnable, just above the grotto. On the main floor of the fortress, the present abode of Our Lady, dating back to the 15th or 16th centuries, was erected with subsequent remodeling.

In front of the entrance to the hermitage there is a fountain with a poem by Antonio Machado, dedicated to the patron of Quesada. From the old fortin is the majestic tower of tribute, with the shield of arms of Peter I (11th century) embedded in the armchair and the walled enclosure of the courtyard of arms, riding on a neckline hardly accessible to Peña Negra, a spectacular vertical wall, frequented by the mountain goats, vultures and eagles. You can climb up to him, from the sanctuary, by a metal step.

The Cueva del Agua is set down by an asphalt lane that leaves from the same A-6206, about 300 m from the sanctuary, where you can access a few small parking spaces, from where you will leave stairs that go down to a narrow and under tunnel (you have to bend down to cross it) through which a waterfall takes the water to the traditional gardens nearby. Through artificial oquity, the road offers us several alternatives to visit this magical place. Here, on a small obscene on the wall of the cave, there is a small replica of the Virgin, where the devotees, considering that this is their first and true abode, place their offerings. It is recommended to wear shoes with non-slip soles and to take precautions, as the floor and stairs are sometimes slippery.

We suggest...

• Visit the birth of the Arroyo de Tíscar and the road of the Vadillo de Tíscar, very close to the sanctuary.

Tiscar is located at a crossroads of roads, right over the villages of Don Pedro and Belerda. The A-6206, also known as Tícar, which links Quesada with Hinojares and Pozo Alcón passes through a tunnel that crosses the rocky wall on which the Sanctuary and the Castle of Peña Negra are based and under which is the Cueva del Agua. This way Hinojares is 12 km, Quesada 15 km and Pozo Alcón 17 km. However, the nearest town is Huesa (10 km). From the same village a narrow local road is set up which, passing through Belerda, links with the previous one very close to the area.

This Sanctuary of the Ibera era, along with another located also in Jaén, in the town of Castellar are very important and have provided the largest number of bronze exvotes, important pieces not only to know the work of this metal in the Iberian world, but to solve many other problems related to the faithful who approached the divinity in these places of worship, such as the type of religiosity, the forms of clothing, the jewels, weapons, the type of hair, etc.

From Collado de los Jardines more than 2,500 exvotes have come out, and from Castellar more than 2,000. The almost all of these objects are kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid.

The exvotes (dolls) of this Shrine of the Collado de los Jardines are of the most varied, in them are represented faithful of all kinds: women, men, warriors, etc.
The latest research was based on the documentation of a historical population in the "Cerro del Castillo" located above the Sanctuary, with the consequent recording of materials and the documentation of 'work units' such as a Roman track, a wall and the environment of the solar that occupied the Iberian necropolis.

The Cueva de los Muñecos is located inside the Natural Park Despeñacolos, the municipal term of Santa Elena, within a ravine, built between colossal stone blocks, in which there are excavated several caves, the largest of which, about 50 meters deep, was probably the limit of the sacred enclosure. Within this cave today there is a water spring that probably should have existed already in ancient times. In the area there is today a Centre for the Interpretation of the Historical and Cultural Heritage of the Natural Park of Despeñacolos, as well as a path for public use that leads to the Sanctuary and a lookout in the so-called Cerro del Castillo.

The great presence of limestone and the karmic effects make our province abundant the caves and coats that served as a home for those who lived these lands thousands of years ago. The Cueva de la Graja is an example of this; this rocky coat located at the north end of the Aznaitín at 750 meters high houses rock art manifestations with an age of 2000 to 5000 years before our age. The cave can be visited by requesting it previously in the City of Jimena.