The guardian angels of the magical Hayedo de Montejo

When Antonio López Lillo arrived that Sunday in the 1980s in Hayedo de Montejo, he couldn’t believe it: “I found people camping there, having barbecues… it was horrible.” This forest engineer, who was head of the Community’s Natural Environment department, then decided to take a step forward to protect this unique space. A unique beech forest, which despite everything has benefited from maximum protection since 1974; It has now been 50 years since it was declared a natural site of national interest. There is something magical in this forest of beeches, oaks and many other species, where up to a hundred different species of butterflies flutter, and whose beauty is immense at any time of the year. But it is the fiery tones of autumn that have made it famous and which attract thousands of people between October and November. Last fall, nearly 50,000 citizens attempted to visit it at that time; without success, because visits are restricted to avoid any deterioration. It was precisely Antonio López Lillo who implemented this access limitation. “I had just visited the Altamira Caves, which you had to visit with a pass and only a certain number of people each day. I thought it was a good idea; I talked about it with the head of the Environment Agency at the time, Luis Maestre, and with the mayor of Montejo de la Sierra, and they found it to be a good thing.” Related news According the Lonely Planet standard No Six, the gems that many tourists don’t know JF Alonso The author of the first Lonely Planet guide to the Community, including the capital, recommends six places that are generally not on the agenda of tourists who come to the town, closely linked to the town of Montejo de la Sierra In fact, the mountain has belonged to the municipality since 1460, when a Segovian nobleman sold it to him. boys from the city, Cándido and Paco, to take charge of distributing the passes to the visitors, in a wooden cabin “No more than 20 people came per day, then we built a stone cabin. a better building, the Casa del Hayedo, in the style of the “Park House” of the French Pyrenees. “As the guides did not have official diplomas,” we could not hire them. legally”, continues López Lillo. That same year and the following year, they organized courses at the Maison des Métiers to train young people from the neighborhood to become guides. In this way, the link of Montejo with its beech forest is is continued. 250 hectares full of biodiversity Above, an aspect of the Beech Forest in autumn Below, on the left, the path which leads to the viewpoint on the right, path of the Jarama river, COMMUNITY Before its. protection, the Hayedo was a pasture of gut, where sheep and goats grazed, firewood was used and charcoal was even made, taking advantage of the cuts of beech and oak that were going up for auction. activities were abandoned; “The last one dates back to the 1950s”, explains Alberto Alonso, head of the environmental education sector of the Community of Madrid. Antonio López Lillo’s idea to restrict visits was providential: the attraction of. The beech forest has grown stronger over the years, and without this protection it would have been very difficult to maintain its delicate balance. He remembers that “the road workers’ house which was at the exit of Montejo became the Hayedo’s reception house”. The mountain is property of Montejo, and his neighbors are guarantors of his care: two Montejanos were his first guides. In 1991, an agreement was signed with the Technical School of Forestry Engineers to study its development; and in fact, today “it is known internationally, it is the best studied beech forest in Spain”, he concludes. Since 2004 it has been a biosphere reserve, and in 2017 it was declared a World Heritage Site. López Lillo is also responsible for the first pedestrian path opened in the Hayedo, that of the Jarama River, which since this week bears his name. , in homage to this first ‘guardian angel’ of this particular forest. The three other trails opened over time in the Hayedo have also been renamed, in memory of three other men closely linked to the survival and good conservation of this small redoubt in the mountains north of Madrid. ProtagonistsThe second route is the Mirador route, which is now called Rafael de Frutos Brun in gratitude for the work of this resident of Montejo who acts as a chronicler and described in his poems and writings the local customs and traditional uses of the territory . Like the story of young Pablo, who went into the beech forest to look for a load of firewood on August 13, 1924, and there, while trying to remove a dry holly, he suffered a fractured skull and died on the ground. cut. Or the death of “La Gorda”, a century-old beech tree, in 2013. Today, “it is internationally known, it is the best studied beech forest in Spain”, explains its first curator. There is a third route, La Ladera. , which now bears the name of researcher Luis Gil Sánchez, the professor who created the research groups of Forest Genetics and Physiology, Natural Systems and Forest History. And the fourth and last, the Trail between Hayas and Robles, is now called “Carlos Hernán de Frutos”, in memory of the mayor of Montejo who helped coordinate the administrations to ensure the protection of the Hayedo. Visit it in the spring during these last For. Over the past 50 years, the beech forest has grown and people have continued to visit it en masse in autumn and less at other times. “Approximately 24,000 people pass through it each year; 50 percent of them take place in autumn”, explains Alberto Alonso, responsible for the environmental education sector. He regrets that many feel “frustrated not to be able to enter”, while in summer the visits are sometimes suspended due to lack of demand And he recommends “visiting it outside of these times; In spring it is also very beautiful and the color is much more striking. And in winter, seeing the bare oaks and beeches is breathtaking. in Buitrago, because there was nowhere here Which is now resolved Currently, the Hayedo is controlled and monitored by a team of environmental educators and forestry agents, “in addition to the residents of Montejo, who are. also guarantors of its care”, recalls Alonso. And although it is not true that, as they say, it is the southernmost beech forest in Spain – “there are also plots of beech forests in Castellón”, he reports – it has the advantage that “on a very small area, 250 hectares, it concentrates a great diversity of flora and fauna.