Garajonay National Park

The summit of Alto de Garajonay at 1,487 m is the highest point on La Gomera and the natural goal of most visitors to the park. The most popular approach starts from La Laguna Grande — the park's main visitor hub with a restaurant, picnic area, and information point — following a well-maintained path through dense laurisilva before ascending the final exposed ridge to the summit cairn and the small shrine to the Virgin of Garajonay.

The summit view, on clear days, encompasses all seven Canary Islands simultaneously — Tenerife's Teide, La Palma, El Hierro, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, and Lanzarote arranged across the horizon. We've stood here on clear October afternoons when the light turned the ocean copper and the distant shadow of Teide's cone appeared to float above its own base. It is, without qualification, one of the finest summit panoramas in the Canary Islands.

The forest on the approach is extraordinary — ancient til trees with massive root plates, Canarian laurel festooned with epiphytic mosses, and the constant drip and silence of the laurisilva in full mist. The path is paved in places and wide enough to walk comfortably side by side. Arrive by 09:00 for the best mist atmospherics; by 14:00 the cloud often clears for summit views. The summit area itself is exposed and can be significantly windier and cooler than the path below — bring a layer regardless of coast temperatures.

For those with limited time or families with children, the circular forest trail around La Laguna Grande is the finest short introduction to the laurisilva available anywhere on the island. The loop begins and ends at the main visitor car park and circles through a succession of forest types — from the mist-soaked fayal-brezal heath with heather trees five metres tall, into denser laurel groves where the canopy closes entirely above the path, and out again onto a sunny ridge with views south towards the coast.

What makes this trail extraordinary is not its difficulty but its density of experience. In 4.5 km you will encounter more species of moss and fern than most visitors see anywhere in a lifetime of European hiking. The endemic La Gomera giant lizard (Gallotia bravoana) occasionally basks on warm rocks beside the path in the afternoons. The air smell — something between fresh earth, wet stone, and eucalyptus, though there are no eucalyptus here — is entirely its own. Children are invariably captivated. A guided audio tour of the Garajonay forest adds an outstanding layer of botanical and ecological context to this route in particular.

Roque Agando (1,250 m) is the most iconic silhouette on La Gomera — a volcanic plug rising 200 metres sheer from the forest, visible from the ferry as you approach the island. The route to its base from the car park on the TF-713 passes through a progressively thinning forest where the trade-wind cloud pours dramatically over the ridge and the tree heath gives way to rocky scrub on the exposed southern slope. You cannot climb the Roque itself (the summit is reserved for specialist climbers with permission), but the views from its base — looking south across the deeply ravined southern gomero landscape, with the forest behind you and the ocean ahead — are outstanding.

The Los Roques area has four named volcanic plugs: Agando, Zarcita, Ojila, and La Fortaleza. A longer loop connects all four, extending the route to approximately 11 km — an excellent full-day option combining forest, volcanic geology, and cliff-edge views that is among the most rewarding walks on the island for experienced hikers.

Of all the trails in Garajonay, the Meriga to El Cedro loop is the one that most rewards the effort invested. El Cedro is a tiny hamlet at the bottom of a deep, water-cut ravine in the island's north — a cluster of stone buildings surrounded by the most ancient and undisturbed section of laurisilva in the entire park. The trees here are larger, older, and more fantastically shaped than anywhere else, and the ravine's springs maintain a moisture so constant that the mosses have grown into architectures of their own.

The route descends from Meriga (accessible by road, with limited parking) through progressively older forest layers to El Cedro, where a small café (open weekends and public holidays) and an ancient hermitage provide a natural rest stop. The ascent back climbs the northern ravine wall through dense fayal-brezal to emerge on the plateau rim with wide Atlantic views. It is a route that rewards a slow pace and attention — rushing through El Cedro would be like walking through a cathedral without looking up. Carry at least 2 litres of water and download offline maps; mobile signal is absent throughout the descent.

An eSIM with Spanish data coverage is useful for accessing weather forecasts and emergency contacts at the road-level trailheads — the ravine itself is a signal dead zone.

El Bailadero pass (1,243 m) sits on the north-east ridge of the park where the trade winds arrive directly from Africa and the Atlantic simultaneously — on most mornings, the cloud pours over the ridge in a continuous slow-motion waterfall, materialising and dissolving in seconds. The path along this ridge from Contadero to El Bailadero follows the exact boundary between the misty northern forest and the drier, sunnier southern scrub — cross the ridge and the ecology changes dramatically within metres.

This is a linear route requiring either a return on the same path (suitable), a taxi pickup at El Bailadero (the best option for a leisurely pace — arrange via your hotel or through a private transfer service), or combining it with a vehicle shuttle using two cars. The ridge views — north to the deep ravines falling towards the coast, south across the drier agricultural terraces — make it one of the most scenically varied half-days in the park.

Most visitors to Garajonay stick to the central area around La Laguna Grande. The western edge of the park, around the Epina plateau, is almost entirely unvisited — yet it contains some of the most atmospheric laurisilva anywhere on the island, and at the bottom of the Epina ravine, a series of spring-fed cascades (the Chorros de Epina) that flow year-round and create a micro-habitat of extraordinary botanical richness.

The trail descends from the Epina picnic area on a narrow, less-maintained path through tree heath and fern understorey to the ravine floor. In winter and spring, the waterfalls run freely; in late summer they are reduced but never disappear entirely. The return climb is demanding in its final section. The great advantage of this route is simple: on a summer weekend when La Laguna Grande has 400 people, Chorros de Epina has perhaps fifteen. We consider it the most undervalued walk in the park.