Benaocaz – Kao – Navazos – Callejón de la Víbora

Beginning in front of Sierra Alta, we go to the village’s chapel, passing by the public swimming pool and sports center. At the top we see a water tank and walk up in it’s direction, pass through it’s base and see a well and at our right we can distinguish what the local people call El Colmillo del Kao (or Kao’s Canine), an impressive limestone spire covered by ivies. We continue going up and if we examine the rocky peaks in front of us, we see that there is a slight slot where we want to go. It seems that the crest, that we are going to climb soon and that is going to take us to the top of the Kao, was missing a tooth. This pass is known as False Door (Puerta Falsa del Kao), to find it is probably the most difficult part of the route, once you are in it, you just have to go up through the slope.
When we arrive at the base of Kao’s massif, it’s time to look for the trail that will take us through holm oaks until the limestone base closest to the top. Once almost at the peak, a small flat without vegetation and with the last mountainous walls around, our way turns right, at this point we leave just at our right also the Kao’s chasm. Be careful if you get closer once it is a cave with big vertical dimensions. We continue twisting until conquer the summit.

Beautiful views, an unbeatable canary. Now, from the top, we can use as reference the Republi-canos Flats, we descend by the east limestone slope of the mountain, the trail is not too marked at the beginning, but we can intuit a split in where we have to take the left one, that with a sinuous and technical downhill will take us at the Ahorcado’s Pass and Los Navazos. We get into Los Navazos and cross them, looking for a corridor called El Callejón de la Vibora, pass a gate and get down by a spur from where we already can see Benaocaz. We pass another gate and a small flat with a light descent, cross a stream and another gate that will take us very close to Benaocaz. By the side of a fountain known as Del Tejar, and enter Benaocaz by it’s Nazarí’s neighborhood.