Collserola from the city: a half day on the ridge, by metro only

Waypoint 01

Getting to the trees without a car

The useful trick with Collserola is that the city's rail network climbs into it rather than stopping at its foot. Several stations on the upper edge of Barcelona put you within ten minutes of a marked path, and the funicular and the Vallvidrera line take you over the ridge line entirely. We usually ride up from the centre, walk the ridge westward, and come down on the far side into the Vallès, which turns an out-and-back into a proper crossing.

Trains run often enough that we do not plan the outbound leg in detail. Turn up, ride up, start walking. The return is the part worth thinking about, because the stations on the inland side are further apart and the last comfortable connection back into the city is earlier than people assume in winter. We write the time of the connection we intend to catch on the back of a hand, and the one after it underneath.

Waypoint 02

The ridge itself

Once you are on the crest the walking is easy: broad forestry tracks, some genuine single track, holm oak and Aleppo pine, and gaps in the trees where the whole city and the sea open up on one side and the Vallès plain on the other. There is very little sustained climbing. The profile is a long series of small rises, which is why people underestimate how much total ascent they have done by the time they get down.

Waymarking is a mix of park signage and long-distance path markings, and the junctions on the ridge are dense enough that a phone map is genuinely useful. Two of the crossings near the high point look identical and are signed to places rather than to directions, so read the sign, not the shape of the path. We have added a needless forty minutes there more than once, both times in good weather with a map in hand.

• Three to four hours walking, roughly 400 to 500 m of cumulative ascent
• Fountains at the main recreation areas; several minor ones run dry by July
• Mountain bikes are common on the wide tracks, so listen on blind bends
• Almost no phone signal blackspots, which makes this a good first group walk

Waypoint 03

Heat, shade and the summer version

From late June to early September this walk changes character. The pines give real shade on the north side of the ridge, but the southern flanks and the wide fire tracks bake, and the city haze sits in the valleys. We start at seven, carry two litres each, and finish before the worst of the afternoon rather than trying to walk through it. The park's own fire-risk notices go up in summer and are worth reading at the trailhead board.

In winter the same route is one of the better cold-weather options near the city, because the ridge catches the sun and the tracks drain fast after rain. The mud that does appear is the slick clay sort on the shaded descents. Short days are the real constraint: leaving the city after ten in December means walking the last section in dusk, which is fine on a track and unpleasant on the single track.

Waypoint 04

How we usually end it

The descent to the inland stations goes through terraced ground and old farm tracks, and it is steeper than the ridge suggests, particularly the last twenty minutes. Poles help anyone with unhappy knees. Once you drop below the pines the temperature rises noticeably, so we tend to keep a little water back for that final stretch rather than finishing the bottles at the high point. The track surface also turns to loose gravel in two places where the farm road has washed, and that is where ankles get turned.

From the station platform you are half an hour from the centre of Barcelona and still covered in pine needles, which is the pleasant absurdity of this range. If you want a longer day, the same ridge continues in both directions and can be strung between stations for six or seven hours without ever repeating a track. We have done that version in April with long light and it makes a satisfying full day, though it needs one person watching the return timetable from about three o'clock onwards.