The Small Helm

The path leads to the track that surrounds a good part of this mountain, joining our route to PR-A 150. We continue to the left. If we took to the right, we would cut off, but at the cost of giving up all the attractions that the El Yelmo Chico is going to bring us. The views that open towards the Hornos Gorge are great, and we will be able to enjoy them for many stretches over the next few kilometers, always surrounded by a forest of black pine dotted with some maples. The track goes around El Yelmo Chico in a clockwise direction.

Later this turn is more pronounced, appearing before our eyes the El Tranco reservoir, the Sierra de Las Villas on the other side of the Guadalquivir Valley, and the Cazorla reservoir in the background. A little further on we will also see the town of Cortijos Nuevos and the outer alignments of the Sierra de Segura, with villages on its slopes such as Arroyo Frío, El Pelón and Catena, in the middle of a large landscape mosaic of olive groves, pine forests and farmhouses. Behind these elevations you can see the beautiful town of Chiclana de Segura, in the El Condado region, and in the background, the distant plains of La Mancha.

The slope on which we travel is oriented towards the northwest, which makes it easier for more maples to appear. To our right we see large vertical walls, and we find a small spring whose water is collected by an old wooden screw next to a maple. It is not uncommon, in all these places, to see groups of mountain goats.

At kilometer 7 we come to a crossroads. If we went to the right, we would return to the point where the path from which we descended from El Yelmo joined the track we are traveling on, always along the PR-A 150, through which a circular route can therefore be made around El Yelmo Chico. Our route, however, turns left here, heading towards the village of La Capellanía.

Crossing with track to the Fuente de los Ganados

At this point our route turns to the left again. If we took to the right we would go along the PR-A 147 to the old forest house of Fuente de los Ganados, a very pleasant place, with a fountain (although it is not certain that it has water), where we would arrive in about fifteen or twenty minutes and that constitutes an advisable detour if we are on time. Our stage continues around El Yelmo Chico on the same face that we have been walking along the last stretch, but now in the opposite direction and at a lower level, making a great zigzag. About 300 meters beyond this junction there is a path to the right, steeply descending, which would take us along the PR-A 147 to the village of El Robledo in about an hour and a half. Our route continues along the track and we enter a beautiful area of ??holm oaks with numerous maples and strawberry trees, flanked by spectacular rocky architecture with large vertical cliffs crowned with very striking contours. Here the pines are black rather than black, since, despite being at a lower altitude, the north orientation of this section creates cooler climate conditions that allow the appearance of these pines below the bioclimatic strip of the black, at reverse than usual. We will pass by a spring with another wooden tornajo, this one larger than the previous one, which creates a cool corner with abundant vegetation linked to humidity.

Soon, deep horizons will open up to us again towards Cortijos Nuevos, Hornos de Segura and the Sierras de Las Villas and Cazorla, and at kilometer 11.1 we leave the track taking a small path that leaves to the right and that cuts to reach La Chaplaincy.

Arroyo de las Aceitunas ravine

The route reaches the bottom of the aforementioned ravine, which can usually be waded without problems because it carries little water, but if necessary, you can turn left and in a few meters we cross the river over a bridge. Then the path rises and the stream is below to our right, its waters falling in small cascades when there is sufficient flow. We go through some already abandoned terraces, where we must be attentive to the signaling beacons. The area is shady and the vegetation heterogeneous, because to the species typical of the Mediterranean forest that grow under the Aleppo pines, such as mastic and cornicabra, are added some typical of places with humidity, such as ash trees and some common rowan, to which they add trees that were cultivated at the time and are already abandoned, such as olive, fig and walnut trees.

After a well-signposted crossing, the path turns into a well-defined path. In the dense Aleppo pine forest there are some gall oaks and guillomos (Amelanchier ovalis). The road goes on a water pipe. It hardly has a slope and is very pleasant, opening to the right windows between the trees where we can contemplate the spectacular poyos of El Yelmo Chico where we come from.

When crossing a small olive grove, the path widens, to become a path again, which in some points is quite aerial and has the traditional dry stone blocks. We will pass through another somewhat larger olive grove that is worth looking at. It is the typical mountain olive grove of this area of ??the Sierra de Segura, with old twisted trunks and stone walls that spread out the ground to alleviate erosion. The place is extraordinarily expressive of the historical use of natural resources in this area of ??the natural park, since olive trees were planted on slopes with steep slopes in times when their cultivation was important for survival, despite their low productivity and laborious of its exploitation. Surrounded by Mediterranean forest and rocky formations, they make up a harmonious landscape, of which villages and farmhouses are also sometimes part, as we can well see from this same path when we look away towards the wide valley of Cortijos Nuevos. Today, the production of these mountain olive groves is still short, but the quality of their oils is extraordinary, both for the characteristics of the soil and the climate and for the careful preparation, subject to the regulations of the Denomination of Origin (EVOO) Sierra of Segura.

At kilometer 15.4 our path leads to a wide forest track that must be taken to the left, enjoying wonderful panoramic views of the aforementioned Cortijos Nuevos valley. Soon our eyes will be surprised by the vision of the town of Hornos de Segura, crowned by its castle.