This tree has a natural monument to itself. Andalusia protects whole landscapes as natural monuments and it has declared one for a single fir, the Monumento Natural Pinsapo de las Escaleretas, inside the Sierra de las Nieves. It is 26 metres tall, 5.10 metres round at chest height and 9 at the base, where roots near the trunk come up out of the ground, and the register puts it between 350 and 550 years old. Closed scars where limbs were cut make it look older than that. The place is named for the way the flat stones of the path lie like steps, and the fir grows at the bottom of a bank beside streams, so from the access track all you see is the top of the crown; you have to go down to it. The view from where it stands takes in the Torrecilla peak and the Alcazaba hill. There is a story that it grew on the grave of a woman known for helping travellers and mountain people, whom she treated with plant remedies. The land is public.
Cuesta de la Laja, Parauta 29452, Malaga, in the Sierra de las NievesYou can recognise it by seeing only its crown from the track above, walking down to the streamside bank to find the full trunk. It stands at Cuesta de la Laja, Sierra de las Nieves.
Free, public land inside the Sierra de las Nieves; the tree sits below the access track and you have to walk down to it
Parauta, about 20 km east of Ronda by mountain road, then on foot
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.