Overview
El Caminito del Rey (The king's trail) is an awesome walkway one meter wide without any handrail (there is a wire to belay yourself) hanging up the vertical walls of the
Gaitanes Gorge one hundred metres over the bottom of the canyon and about 3 km long.
It is located in the place called
"El Chorro" one of the best climbing spots in Andalucía, Spain. This huge engineering work was made between 1901 and 1905 and it was built to allow comunication, goods transportation, security and maintenance of a cannal between two hydroelectric power stations: El Salto del Chorro and El Salto del Gaitanejo.
The Spanish King Alfonso XIII walked along this "trail" the day he inaugurated The Conde de Guadalhorce Dam in 1921. Since then the people started to name it the trail "of the king"...
Nowadays it is very damaged, and even some sections have fallen down, so the hikers must pass them balancing over a single metal beam above a one hundred meters void. This is not something to take lightly, in fact two hikers died in 1999 and 2000 by falling down. Currently the trail is geared for self-belay in the lower gorge by means of wires fixed with bolts.
External Links
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Wikipedia link
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Wikipedia in Spanish with more information
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A page with a very useful information in English
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Spanish web with nice pictures and information
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