Four and a half months of every year, lighting the built barbecue at a designated picnic area here is an offence. Montes de Málaga Natural Park is a protected area of almost 5,000 hectares immediately north of the capital’s municipal area.
That ban, and a wind, explain more about visiting it than any trail description would. It runs from 1 June to 15 October, set by the Junta de Andalucía for the whole of Andalucía, and it covers the built barbecues at the picnic areas too. The park lies 5 km from the city up the A-7000, across Málaga, Casabermeja and Colmenar.
How do you get to Montes de Málaga Natural Park? Montes de Málaga Natural Park covers close to 5,000 hectares immediately north of the capital, about five kilometres from the city. The Junta de Andalucía names a vehicle as the way in, and from 1 June to 15 October all use of fire and all motor vehicle circulation are banned in forest areas.
What summer forbids
The rule most people never check before driving up with a cool box is seasonal, and the Junta sets it for the whole of Andalucía.
Between 1 June and 15 October all use of fire is prohibited — bonfires, barbecues, agricultural and forestry burning — along with motor vehicle circulation in forest areas and in zones of forest influence, which extend 400 metres around the woodland.
The reach is the part that surprises. The barbecue ban includes designated recreation areas, so the built grills at Torrijos and El Cerrado sit unusable for four and a half months. They are there, and they cannot be lit.
That leaves 16 October to 31 May as the only window when those grills legally work, which is the single most useful date range in this article.
The exemptions are narrow and cover nobody on an ordinary day out: tourist accommodation and rural restaurants, youth camps run for educational purposes, and traditional stills and kilns with prior authorisation from the provincial delegation.
Three waymarked trails, and how short they are
The park’s own trail sheets deliver a surprise for anyone expecting a mountain day. The one the Junta calls “the most interesting in Montes de Málaga Natural Park” is Torrijos, and it measures 842 metres one way, walked in 30 minutes.
| Trail | Grade | Time | One-way distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torrijos | Low | 30 minutes | 842 metres |
| Umbría de Contadoras | Low | 45 minutes | 998 metres |
| Pocopán | Medium | 1 hour 30 minutes | 2,889 metres |
All three are linear, so Torrijos really means 1,684 metres on the ground, the Umbría 1,996 and Pocopán 5,778. Added together the three come to under 10 kilometres of walking, which is why this park works as a morning rather than a day.
A fourth name, El Cerrado, appears on the park’s list of trails, but its own sheet is the one for the picnic area and publishes no distance, time or grade at all. That sheet does carry a notice dated 21 May 2026: lighting the built barbecues there is banned during the high fire risk season.
What each walk actually crosses differs more than the numbers suggest. Torrijos starts at the Lagar de Torrijos ecomuseum and follows the Chaperas stream through riverside vegetation and replanted pine to the ruined Lagar de Santillana. Pocopán climbs from the Las Contadoras nature centre through pine woods holding squirrels introduced from the Cazorla, Segura and Las Villas park in Jaén, and ends at a viewpoint over the whole park.
Access is the same road for all of them, the A-7000 towards Colmenar. Pocopán and the Umbría leave that road at the fuente de la Reina, at kilometre 14.9, plus another 2 kilometres of track; Torrijos carries on to kilometre 21 before its own 2-kilometre turning.
The terral is manufactured here
There is a reason this park comes up in every conversation about Málaga’s heat, and it is not incidental.
A northerly wind called the terral descends precisely through the Montes de Málaga and warms as it compresses on the way down, lifting the temperature sharply and collapsing humidity. It is a summer phenomenon and explains why the city appears in heat-record headlines while the rest of the coast reads normal, as set out in the best time to visit Málaga.
What matters here is the overlap of calendars. The terral blows in summer, and summer is exactly the period when fire and vehicles are banned in forest areas. The slope down which that wind heats is the same one the rule protects during those months.
Translated into a decision: a terral day is the worst possible time to go up. Extreme heat, minimal humidity and strong wind in a pine forest, with the recreation areas unable to use fire anyway.
Close on the map, awkward on the ground
The way up starts at Fuente Olletas, on the road signposted as the A-7000 and still known locally as the Colmenar or Los Montes road. The regional environment department states plainly that the most suitable means of transport is a vehicle, whether private, hired, a taxi, or transport contracted for groups.
That is the sentence worth pausing on. A protected space whose boundary touches the city’s own municipal area, and the official advice is to drive.
This is the fourth protected space on the site where access is limited by something, and in none of the four does public transport solve it.
| Protected space | What limits access |
|---|---|
| Caminito del Rey | The ticket, released in blocks of dates |
| El Torcal de Antequera | The road, closed once the car park fills |
| The Maro coves | The shuttle, which departs only from a car park |
| Montes de Málaga | Fire and vehicles, banned for four and a half months |
Quick decision by when you go
- June to October → no fire at all, not even in the built barbecues
- October to June → the recreation areas work normally
- Without a car → budget for a taxi, since the Junta offers no public transport alternative
- With children → all four signposted trails are rated low difficulty
- On a terral day → change the plan, it is the worst possible scenario in forest
- Looking for shade in summer → this is the only shade nearby, so start early
For the record, the protected figure is 4,995.56 hectares across the municipalities of Málaga, Casabermeja and Colmenar, later brought into the Natura 2000 network as a Special Area of Conservation under Andalusian protected-areas law.
Four signposted trails run through the park: El Cerrado, Pocopán, Torrijos and the Umbría de Contadoras. All four are rated low difficulty and suitable for families, which is the opposite of the high-mountain profile of the province’s other routes.
The two recreation areas, Torrijos and El Cerrado, sit beside the Lagar de Torrijos and close to the Humaina stream respectively, both with tables, benches, barbecues, road access with parking and public toilets.
The Lagar de Torrijos ecomuseum covers the historic viticulture of these hills and how wine was made in the old presses, and the Las Contadoras nature classroom completes the public facilities. What survives of that wine tradition is in Málaga’s sweet wines. These hills are also the core area of the folk fiesta covered in verdiales in Malaga.
How these walks compare with the rest of the province is in hiking near Málaga, where the Montes appear as the shade option. Fares on the urban network, which reaches Fuente Olletas but does not climb into the park, are in getting around Málaga.
Three checks settle a trip to the Parque Natural Montes de Málaga.
- What is the date? Everything about fire and vehicles turns on 1 June and 15 October.
- Is a terral forecast? If so, pick another day rather than another trail.
- How are you getting up? No scheduled service climbs, so it is a car or a taxi.
Frequently asked questions about Montes de Málaga Natural Park
Can you have a barbecue in Montes de Málaga?
Not between 1 June and 15 October. The Junta de Andalucía bans all use of fire in forest areas during that period, including the built barbecues at the Torrijos and El Cerrado recreation areas.
How do you get to Montes de Málaga Natural Park?
The Junta itself names a vehicle as the most suitable means, whether private, hired or a taxi, climbing from Fuente Olletas on the A-7000, the old C-345 known as the Colmenar or Los Montes road.
How big is Montes de Málaga Natural Park?
Close to 5,000 hectares spread across the municipalities of Málaga, Casabermeja and Colmenar, on the left bank of the Guadalmedina basin and immediately north of the city’s own municipal area.
What to check before going up
The date, and only the date. Inside the summer restriction the Parque Natural Montes de Málaga stays open for walking, with no fire anywhere and vehicle movement limited in forest areas. Having no closing day at all makes it the Monday answer among the day trips from Malaga. Outside it, Torrijos and El Cerrado work in full, grills included.
Two of the city’s registered trails climb up here from the coast and from Ciudad Jardín, with their distances in hiking trails inside Malaga.
Five kilometres away and no line that climbs. This park’s closeness is geographical, not practical.