Béznar: Iron Age fort

Béznar should win a prize for having plenty of good walks leading to places of interest from all different eras.

Today we set out for an Iron Age fort we saw marked on the IGN map. There were no Wikiloc tracks to it, but there was an extensive page on its history on the Dúrcal website. Using Wikiloc’s “Plan Trail” tool, we laid out a route that had a few iffy-looking sections, but in general, seemed quite doable. And in fact, it was.

Fog and clouds swirled around us as we set out, but it didn’t rain. Our route took us along the edge of the embalse, snaking back-and-forth around each inlet. Five or six different kinds of yellow flowers brightened up the trail below a long line of bee boxes. It is Saturday, so for the first time, we saw fishermen out on the reservoir.

When we got close to our goal, we needed to cross the barranco carved out by the Rio Chite. Scouting out the various choices, we picked a wide but shallow crossing. At that point, two hikers from Motril (down on the coast) came along, and all four of us got to the other side with dry feet. We worked our way up a couple of steep climbs and were within a few hundred meters of the fort when we ran into a locked gate. Oh well, it was a beautiful route there and back, and not such a great disappointment because there isn’t much left of the fort except the base of the walls. We could imagine it from having been able to look at the setting on our way there.

Back to Béznar via a different river crossing, this time shorter deeper, and in spite of Ned adding extra rocks to help me out, we both ended up with wet feet - me from not being agile enough, and Ned from trying to help me. It wasn’t cold though, so it really didn’t make any difference.

At any rate, now we know why there aren’t any Wikiloc tracks to the fort.Read more