How difficult is the GR 131 El Bastón (La Palma)?

Two quite different walks joined at the summit. The first is a working hillside: steps up off the harbour, then farm tracks between the black block walls of the banana plantations, a few short stretches of asphalt on the El Time road and a steep paved lane, before the surface turns back to earth at the cliff edge above the Barranco de las Angustias. There is very little shade until the Canary pine closes in above the last houses, and the pull up to the Caldera rim at the Torre del Time is relentless rather than technical. From there the route climbs the rim itself on pine needles and loose grit, the trees bending and thinning as the ground opens out, until above the last of them it is bare high mountain scrub and rock to the top. Past the observatory the walking changes completely. A made path runs the lip of the Caldera, easy underfoot and almost level by the standards of what came before, with the Caldera dropping away on the right and the trade wind cloud usually banked somewhere below on the left. The difficulty in the second half is not the ground, it is altitude, exposure and the fact that once you are on the rim you stay on it. The Cabildo grades the climb to the summit extreme, and puts heat and dehydration ahead of the ascent as the reason.

Navigation: Waymarked with GR red and white flashes and easy to follow in clear air. Two junctions are worth reading properly rather than glancing at. GR 130 comes in on the climb at around 600 m, and the two long distance routes are signposted together there, so check the number and not just the colours. At Roque de los Muchachos the route crosses the LP-4 and the observatory access roads, and the marked descents to Puntagorda, Tijarafe and Puntallana all start within a kilometre of each other. The real hazard is cloud: the Cabildo's own notes for the crest say mist causes navigation problems, and on the rim there is nothing to take a bearing from.

In poor weather: The bottom of the climb faces west across the banana terraces with no shade, and the Cabildo's grading names heat and dehydration before it names the ascent. Above the treeline nothing breaks the wind for the last few kilometres to the summit, and conditions on the rim have no relation to the harbour you left. The trade wind cloud normally sits below the crest, so a grey coast can still mean a clear top, and the reverse also happens. In winter the crest takes snow and the interpretive signs at Los Andenes warn about ice on the path.

Escape options: Below El Time you are on or beside the LP-1 and can be back at the coast quickly. After that every exit is a marked path off the ridge into a different valley. PR LP 10 leaves at the Torre del Time viewpoint for La Mata, and SL TJ 71 drops from Risco de las Pareditas towards El Jesús above Tijarafe. Between there and the summit there is nothing. Roque de los Muchachos is the first road, the LP-4, carrying observatory and sightseeing traffic rather than a service. On the crest the one quick way to a road is at Pico de la Nieve, where a marked path runs about 1.7 km down to a car park on the LP-4 just short of its km 25. Pico de la Cruz and Los Andenes have marked descents too, but they end on the north coast, over 2,000 m below and a long way from anywhere you were heading.

The long middle of the trail, on the spine of the island, and the part that cannot be shortened once started. It opens still on the Caldera rim, losing height in steps through returning Canary pine, and includes the most exposed walking on the route where the path runs the cliff edge along Lomo Corralejo. Below Pico de las Ovejas the character changes for the better: laurel begins to appear among the pines, and past El Reventón the route becomes a ridge path through a cutting in dense laurel forest on the Cumbre Nueva, shaded and cool, then a broad forest track. Those last kilometres into El Pilar are the easiest walking on the whole trail, and El Pilar is the one place on this section with a road, a car park and running water. Out of El Pilar the pines climb the flank of Birigoyo and then stop. What follows is the Ruta de los Volcanes, a line of cinder cones walked mostly on black lapilli that is loose and deep in places and gives under the foot on every climb. The 2021 vents lie below and to the west, so what you cross is their ash, not their lava; the craters the path actually threads, Hoyo Negro, Duraznero and Martín, are older. Between the last pines above El Pilar and the forest above Los Canarios there is no shade, no shelter and nothing built.

Navigation: Red and white flashes throughout, and the line is obvious in clear weather. Cloud is not a nuisance here but the main navigational problem, and the Cabildo says so for this crest: on the Cumbre Nueva and again on the open cinder there is little to take a bearing from and the lapilli holds no trodden line. El Pilar is the junction to be careful at, because four other marked routes leave the recreation area besides the GR: PR LP 14 west to El Paso, PR LP 16 and PR LP 17 east to Playa del Hoyo, and PR LP 18 to Los Guinchos. On the volcanoes, short marked paths drop east off the ridge at intervals, so if the ground is falling away steadily and you are no longer on the crest line, you are on one of them.

In poor weather: The Cabildo's warning for this crest is that altitude, sun and wind dehydrate quickly, and the ground bears it out: there is no shelter between the last pines above El Pilar and the forest above Los Canarios, a stretch of open cinder with nothing standing on it. Springs on the way may be dry, which matters more here than anywhere else on the trail. Cloud arrives from the east over the Cumbre Nueva and can sit on the crest all day. Snow reaches this ridge in winter.

Escape options: The fewest ways off of any part of the trail. El Reventón is the best of them: the old camino real crosses the ridge there and PR LP 01 drops west to the national park visitor centre above El Paso in around an hour and a half of downhill walking, or east towards Santa Cruz. El Pilar has a road, a car park and a visitor centre, and four marked paths leaving it. South of El Pilar every exit is a forest track down the Mazo side with no settlement at the bottom of it: SL VM 125 leaves near Hoyo Negro, SL FU 111 drops from the foot of Volcán Martín to the Fuente del Tión, and SL FU 110 leaves at Montaña de los Faros for the Pista General del Este. Between Punta de los Roques and El Reventón, and again between El Pilar and Los Canarios, carrying on to the next fixed point is usually quicker than going down.

A short, hot finish that is nothing like the rest of the trail. The route leaves Los Canarios on village streets, picks up the road towards the volcanoes and then drops down the cinder flank of San Antonio in zigzags on loose picón that rolls underfoot. Below that it is vineyard country, low vines set in pits of black grit, walls and irrigation channels, with the paved road cutting across the line several times. Past the Roque de Teneguía the path doubles back on itself and crosses Teneguía's 1971 lava between the cone and Montaña del Mago, and the surface becomes broken malpaís with tabaibas growing out of the clinker. The last stretch runs down through it to the salt pans and the lighthouse with the sea ahead the whole way. It reads as an easy hour on paper and is not one: the descent is continuous, the ground is unstable, there is no shade on any of it, and most people arrive here at the end of a long day off the volcanoes.

Navigation: The weakest waymarking on the trail, and it is the road that causes it rather than the mountain. The line runs through Los Canarios on streets, then on and beside the LP-209, and crosses the paved road several times going down, so the flashes move onto walls and kerbs. Below the visitor centre the marked paths around San Antonio and Teneguía are dense and several are day visitors' circuits. The GR passes between Teneguía's cone and Montaña del Mago rather than over the summit; the popular summit path is a there and back off the route.

In poor weather: South facing, low and fully exposed, and the Cabildo's stage notes single out heat and wind on this ground. There is no shade between the last pines above Los Canarios and the lighthouse. The loose picón on the San Antonio zigzags rolls under the boot, and that matters more on tired legs at the end of a long day than the gradient does.

Escape options: The easiest section to get off and the hardest to get away from. The lighthouse road stays close to the line most of the way down and is crossed several times, and the San Antonio visitor centre near the top has a car park. The catch is direction: everything except the lighthouse itself is uphill from where you are, and returning to Los Canarios on foot means over 500 m of climbing on tarmac.