Vilaflor de Chasna put this tree on the town's coat of arms, which is a fair indication of how the place rates it against everything else it owns. Pino Gordo is a Canary pine with a trunk 9.36 metres around, the thickest native tree in Spain and widely called the most voluminous pine in Europe. It is also over 45 metres tall, which almost anywhere else would be the headline and here is not even the record at this viewpoint: the tree 150 metres up the trail is eleven metres taller. Estimates put it at roughly 700 to 800 years, meaning it was already a substantial pine when Castile finished taking the island in 1496, and a seedling several centuries before that. The bark carries fire scars. Canary pine is one of the few pines able to resprout straight from a scorched trunk, which is how a tree can spend seven centuries on a dry volcanic slope that burns and keep its crown. It grows at over 1,400 metres in the Corona Forestal, the pine belt that rings Teide, and reaching it costs nothing: a signed parking area off the TF-21 toward the Parador, then a marked trail of 150 to 200 metres, with benches and information panels at the tree.
TF-21, Vilaflor de Chasna (viewpoint near km 67, Corona Forestal), TenerifeThe thicker of the two pines at the viewpoint, 9.36 metres round with fire scars up the bark; the taller one stands 150 metres further along the trail.
Free. A marked trail of roughly 150 to 200 metres from a signed parking and viewpoint area just off the TF-21 mountain road toward the Parador; benches and information panels on site.
By car via the TF-21 a few kilometres above Vilaflor village. No public transport reaches the viewpoint directly, so a car is the realistic way.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from.
