The public company Sodepal, dependent on the Cabildo de La Palma, has developed from Thursday until yesterday, Sunday, a new edition of the Festival de Senderismo y Montaña, with the participation of nearly 300 registered participants.

The festival offered a total of ten routes, in which, in addition to visiting natural areas of great environmental value, visitors were offered the chance to discover top-quality gastronomic products made on La Palma. Incidentally, during these four days the visitors visited vineyards, coffee plantations, beehives and a livestock farm and cheese factory, with tastings in each of these resources.

This project, which every year arouses great interest among groups of walkers from all the islands who travel to La Palma to fill all the places offered, includes routes to natural areas of reference, such as Pico Bejenado, Los Dragos de Las Tricias, the new volcano, the crest of La Palma starting from Pico de la Nieve or the now traditional route of the Sistine Chapel of the Atlantic.

The festival kicked off with a novel journey, which allowed twenty walkers to join Tijarafe with Santa Cruz de La Palma through different trails, with overnight stays in the municipalities of El Paso, Fuencaliente and in the capital of La Palma itself.

The aim was that the hikers could walk until midday and, at the same time, have free time in the afternoons to get to know the municipalities they reached each day. The organisation was in charge of transporting the suitcases to the accommodation points, so that the participants could do the routes with lighter backpacks and adjusted to their physical conditions.

Miriam Perestelo, CEO of Sodepal and head of Economic Promotion on the island, stressed that the Hiking and Mountain Festival "has covered all the places offered in this edition", which reveals "the interest it arouses among both hikers from La Palma and walkers from the rest of the Canary Islands".

Miriam Perestelo stressed that "we have maintained the routes through areas that we believe are essential to show at least part of the natural beauty of La Palma", as well as visits to farms "where our primary sector is valued". In addition to this, "we hope to consolidate and increase the route in future editions, adding other municipalities through the Gran Recorrido por la Costa y Medianías (GR-130) trail".