Serranía Alta

Where the rivers rise

The Serranía Alta is the highest and coldest part of the mountains, and its rivers rise here. The Júcar emerges beside Tragacete, below Cerro de San Felipe; the Cuervo emerges in Vega del Codorno through a 300-metre tufa barrier; the Escabas comes down from the mountains of Tragacete, and the Guadiela opens the Hoz de Beteta beside Beteta.

Between these rivers, limestone and pine forest hold very different waters and rocks: the tufa lake of Laguna del Marquesado, the torcas, collapse sinkholes, of Lagunaseca, the labyrinth of Los Callejones in Las Majadas, the gorges of Cañizares and Carrascosa, and the rodeno, red sandstone, and mushrooms of Valdemeca. Zafrilla stands above 1,400 metres.

What memory tells

• A river of logs. For centuries the mountain pines went down the Escabas and Guadiela to the Tagus and Aranjuez. The gancheros of the Escabas and Guadiela.
• Iron from the mountains. Cueva del Hierro lived from a mine worked from Roman times until the 20th century.
• Salt and the dehesa. Valsalobre, with 21 inhabitants in 2021, preserves the mountains’ best-told oral memory. The Valsalobre saltworks.
• Those who left. The 19 municipalities totalled 9,717 inhabitants in 1950 and 2,183 in 2021, 77% fewer. Depopulation.

Exploring the area

Much of the area lies within the Serranía de Cuenca Natural Park, with visitor centres in Tragacete and Valdemeca.