02 Tozal del Mallo Climbing

From the bus drop-off /  (post Sept 16th car parking lot), walk out the bottom of the parking lot on the right onto a nice, new path.   This soon changes to an old road, then walks through and open field and soon joins the old path (in 2019, blocked off with branches ) that started at the now-abandoned "interpretation center". (The popular hiking map of the area does not show this new trail; it still shows walking down the road 1/2 km to start at the old "interpretation" center. )

The path first climbs through open wood, then turns steeper and ascends (in about 1 hr) past a small shelter (Lean-too).  Continuing above the shelter the trail comes to a split.  To the right is the popular hike along the base of Paired Concava, Libro Abierto, Primavera and eventually joining the trail to Cascada de Cotatuero, where you can go up to the Cascades or down back to the parking area.

The left split, which you want, crosses a drainage on flat slabs, then enters the scrub and trees and makes a few zig zags.  To reach the base of Tozal del Mallo take the obvious climber's path that cuts off left where one of these "zigs" makes a 270-degree turn to the right.

If you just want to hike to the top of Tozal, stay on the main path.

Hiking to Tozal del Mallo - The main path will scramble up some steps and then come to a junction. Here you must decide: Long way around, but "easy" (class 3 scrambling, some "no fall here"), vs short way up but some class 4 -to-easy class 5 scrambling with "pitons" (1-inch rods driven and cemented into holes, sometimes out-of-reach for shorter people, and sometimes in the wrong place even for taller folk). The "Clavijan" route has two sections of "clavijan". The first uses 4 rods to cover about 20 feet.  The 2nd was more serious and used about 7 or 8 to cover 35-45 feet.  As mentioned, short people will not like the spacing, and even I at 6 ft felt there was one "piton", near the top, so out of place I ignored it and climbed the rock (about 5.3 -5.4 or so) . It seems instructive to note that both sections now sport fairly new, stainless steel rap anchors at their tops!
   
If you want the "pitons" ("Clavijan") go left; if you want the easier way go right ("Fajeta" = "ledges").  Most people use the "Clavijan" route UP and the "Fajeta" route DOWN, but if heights bother you, or if soloing 5.4 is an issue, then consider taking the "Fajeta" both ways.   The map shows "equipped" for both ways, but on the "ledges" route the equipment is a cable on a sidewalk-ledge that is so wide that you could take a horse on it, plus a little class 3 scrambling with a cable as handhold. Also, if you have not gone up the "ledges" route, there is one place where it is not really obvious where you continue down. This is after the "sidewalk".  The easiest way to describe it is that you'll probably have taken a side path through scrub that has led to a well-defined ridge, whereupon the path ends!  Walk back the "false path" to the drainage and continue down, scrambling some easy class 3 moves (some cairns).