Tenerife Walking Guides - Teide National Park.

I seem to have some kind of timing mechanism in my head which, if it doesn’t get away from a screen and into the mountains or valleys of Tenerife on a regular basis, starts to emit a dull whining sound which blocks all creative thought.
Of course, that’s just an elaborate way of saying that I can only survive so long before going on a walk – it’s food for the soul.

We’ve been trying to put the finishing touches to our latest Tenerife walking guide – Hiking Highs;Teide National Park – but we’ve been incredibly busy for months now (yay!!) and haven’t had time to map out the final route…until last Monday when we broke free and headed up into the crater.

We’d timed it perfectly as the high cloud that’s been hanging around for a couple of days finally lifted and Teide National Park lay below her customary intensely blue sky. The last vestiges of snow on the peak are diminishing daily as the sun climbs higher and now the spring flowers have burst into bloom. This is a wonderful time of year to go walking in the National Park.

Setting off from the El Portillo Visitor centre, the large white flowers of Teide broom and the elegant indigo stems of Tajinaste Azul accompanied us as we climbed gently above the crater, the twin peaks of La Palma emerging above the sea of clouds on our horizon.

It’s an incredible feeling to be in such a surreal landscape with the sun on your back and only the lizards and canaries for company. Mount Teide was her usual, stunning best and from our vantage point we could clearly see the path that leads over Montaña Blanca before climbing steeply to the summit. Skirting the edge of a spectacular gorge of wind-eroded rocks, we arrived at the top of the Arenas Negras volcanic cone. Then we regressed to giggling childhood as half running, half surfing, we descended its black cinder face, covering a distance in 15 minutes that had taken us 40 minutes to ascend.

Teide National Park is so many things; an alien landscape; a geological masterpiece; home to a mysterious creature known as the mouflon; a hiker’s paradise and a giant playground where you can take a cable car white knuckle ride to see an archipelago in satellite mode and surf volcanoes. Where else on this planet can boast as much?

The ‘Hiking Highs;Teide National Park’ walking guide is now available to buy and have delivered directly  to your email within 24 hours.