Some landslides at the top of the Mount Teide force the Council of Tenerife to decree the closure of access to the volcano’s crater for safety. The resolution, signed yesterday by the management of the Teide National Park, dependent on the Insular Corporation, orders «to close for safety the final section of trail number 10 Telesforo Bravo, from its arrival at the crater to the end point of its route». It also asks for “maximum caution on the rest of the trail and on the rest of the National Park network”.
The closure of the only path that leads to the crater “will continue until security conditions improve” once the avalanches have been located. It arrives just at the beginning of the period of greatest demand for permits to access the top of Spain, with the improvement of weather conditions in spring and summer. The authorizations are very restricted, a maximum of 200 per day. Before the pandemic, in 2019, 70,696 people rose. Now you can take the path but not reach the crater, where the highest point is.
The Telesforo Bravo trail starts from La Rambleta, where the upper station of the Cable Car is located, to the peak of the Tenerife giant. There are 600 meters of travel in which it goes from 3,550 meters to 3,715, the maximum altitude reached by the volcano according to the latest measurement by the National Geographic Institute and Grafcan, instead of the 3,718 meters that were always attributed to the volcano. The section that has been closed is the last of this path, one of the most visited on the entire island for its impressive views of Tenerife and the rest of the Archipelago.
It is a new unforeseen event on the access route to the Teide peak after the closure of the Altavista refuge –at 3,270 meters of altitude– in November 2020 –19 months ago– after the termination without the possibility of extension of the contract for its management awarded to Cableway. Many of the hikers spent the night there on their way to the peak. The Cabildo is pending resolution of the new adjudication to reopen the shelter. His intention was to do it this summer but there is still no news about it.
The mountaineers of Tenerife have requested on several occasions the reopening of the refuge, an essential stopping point for your ascents to the highest peak in the country. “We request that, as soon as possible, the refuge be reopened so that it can be used by all of Tenerife and Canarian society in the ascent to the Teide peak, as well as to resume its function as a rest, relief and assistance point. to all those people who venture into the high mountains of our Island”, pointed out the Mountaineering Federation in a letter last year. But it is still closed and now the last section of the Telesforo Bravo trail has been closed.
There are also restrictions on some trails in the Teide National Park located on the slopes of the volcano. In this case, they are due to the actions to control the populations of mouflons, a species introduced in 1971 during the last years of the Franco dictatorship, when the space was already a national park –it has been since 1954–, for the enjoyment of fans of big game hunting Today attempts are being made to eradicate mouflons due to the damage they cause throughout the area.
The prohibitions are concentrated on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays until June 3 in the Siete Cañadas sector (from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.) and the Pico Viejo sector (7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.). This is reported by the Teide National Park on its social networks, where it points out that “the control of the mouflon is a necessary management activity for the conservation of this space.” For any questions, contact the Teide National Park staff or the offices (922 922 371 or [email protected]).
