The Natural Environment area of the Cabildo de Tenerife guarantees the reopening of the Altavista Refuge of the Parque Nacional del Teideclosed almost four years ago, in the spring of 2024. This is stated by the counselor Blanca Pérez, who believes that in the month of September the new management model will be defined for a facility whose Comprehensive reform would cost 676,000 eurosaccording to the first preliminary study.
The reopening is longed for by all sectors related to the largest protected natural space on the Island and Canary Islands, visited every year by 4.5 million tourists, from the 7,000 federated mountaineers to hundreds of hikers through many other groups. For this reason, Pérez argues that the process must have “all the guarantees of sustainability and security.” In his opinion, “it is not about opening for the sake of opening, because if we have been without this infrastructure in the high mountains since November 2020, we are not going to recover it if we cannot guarantee that it is in the best conditions. And that’s what we work on.” In this sense, he recalls that the Refuge still belongs to the insular area of Roads –formerly Roads and Landscape–. The first thing will be its transfer to the Environment. Right now, the nationalist counselor clarifies, “there is no adaptation project. The only one in progress is, precisely, that of Highways to install a treatment plant for 198,000 euros ». They will continue with this initiative “and, in parallel, we will start to act,” she says. She also announces “works with a certain urgency, because the environment is vandalized.”
The intention is to provide it with human and material resources to make it “the benchmark it has to be”. The counselor opts for an administrative concession with a prior competition, “but we are going to value it.” At the moment, the global cost of 676,000 euros, separate treatment plant, seems “excessive”. Blanca Pérez values the difficulties: «For any company, the high mountain environment complicates the bet. For example, water and electricity were taken before the Teide Cable Car, the entity to which the Refuge belonged.
He adds that “the first thing is to define the management model and we are in a position to complete this step in September, because we are not going to stop until we carry out what is a commitment.”
He considers it “unfortunate that nothing has been done since it closed its doors in 2020». Pérez envisions the future of “a property according to the space where it is located”, with renewable energy, sustainability and security. The counselor delves into the idea: “Not only for the people who can stay there, but for the option of becoming a base for action in case of accidents in the National Park.”
The installation of the treatment plant to solve the discharges in a protected and fragile space continues, including the environmental impact study. Then you have to have the report of the insular legal service and the economic analysis to specify the figure of the expense to be undertaken.
The Cabildo maintains its commitment to reopen the Altavista Refuge, considering it a “fundamental” infrastructure for the Teide National Park and its visitors. But, insists Blanca Pérez, “in the best conditions of sustainability and security.”
A space created for the high mountains
Kilometer 40.2 of the TF-24 highway, in the municipality of La Orotava. Until a little over three years ago, they were the preferred coordinates and sought after by lovers of the high mountains as a reference for the Altavista Refuge, located at an altitude of 3,270 meters and the banner of the Teide National Park. A property with two buildings, three common rooms and capacity for 54 people. For the human being, the word refuge acquires its broadest concept in this hostile environment, but, at the same time, literal. Built in 1892, it was handed over to the Cabildo in 1948 and its last reform dates from 2007, when Ricardo Melchior was president of the island. It was closed in November 2020 and its six workers relocated to the Teide Cable Car as the 25-year concession could not be extended by law, according to Intervention. During the past term (2019-2023), the beginning of the path to reopen it was announced without it becoming a reality. The truth is that the Refuge has been vandalized on a few occasions, it usually appears full of garbage and its appearance is completely abandoned. It has been denounced by those who regularly pass through there. The Mountain Federation even requested its reopening by letter and promoted, together with other groups, several days of intensive cleaning in its surroundings. A pending issue that the new government team of the Cabildo de Tenerife wants to solve. | JDM
