Garraf in early spring: limestone, wind and no shade at all

Waypoint 01

A range with no water in it

Garraf is karst, which means rain disappears into the rock rather than running along the surface. There are no streams to speak of, the historic water supply was cisterns and wells, and the vegetation is low, aromatic scrub that provides no shade whatsoever. Everything about planning a walk here follows from those two facts. You carry all your water, you choose your season deliberately, and you set a start time that gets the climbing done while the rock is still cool.

Our standing rule is two litres per person for a half day and three for anything longer, even in spring, and we fill up at the station before starting rather than assuming there will be a fountain at the trailhead. In practice the group always drinks more than expected because the wind is drying and the white rock throws heat back at you even on a mild day. Somebody is always caught short, so one person carries a spare litre by agreement rather than by accident.

• No natural water on the route; refill only at coastal villages and stations
• Best from late February to mid-April, and again in November
• Limestone gets slick when damp and the polished sections are genuinely slippery
• Wind off the sea can be strong on the exposed shoulders even in calm forecasts

Waypoint 02

Station to station along the coast

The rail line running south from Barcelona hugs the coast under the massif and stops at a string of small towns, which makes Garraf the easiest place near the city for one-way walks. We pick two stations, walk between them over the hills rather than along the shore, and never worry about returning to a start point. Three to five hours is the usual shape, and you can lengthen it by heading inland over the plateau before dropping back to the sea.

The paths climb quickly from sea level. Expect a sharp forty minutes out of any coastal town, then easier ground on the shoulders and old tracks above. The gradient is the reason this walk feels harder than its modest total ascent suggests, and it is why we do the climb first, in the morning, and keep the long descending traverse for the afternoon when the light on the sea is better anyway.

Waypoint 03

What early spring gives you

In March the scrub flowers. Rosemary, thyme, cistus and a scatter of small orchids on the thinner soils, the whole hillside smelling of resin as soon as the sun hits it. The light is clear rather than hazy, the sea is a hard blue, and the temperature sits in the range where the total absence of shade stops being a problem and becomes a pleasure. There are also far fewer people than there will be in May.

The trade-off is wind. Early spring brings days when the exposed shoulders are unwalkable in a comfortable sense: not dangerous, just relentless, and conversation stops for an hour at a time. We check wind speed as carefully as temperature before a Garraf day and swap to the sheltered inland valleys if the forecast is above about forty kilometres an hour on the tops. Hats blow off, dust gets in eyes, and the good mood of the group drains away faster than the water does.

Waypoint 04

Why we stop going in summer

From June onwards this massif becomes a heat trap. White rock, no canopy, and ravines that hold still air. We have seen people start a coastal walk here at eleven in the morning in July with a single half-litre bottle, and it is the clearest example we know of a place that looks gentle on a map and is not. The distances are short, the terrain is not technical, and none of that helps at thirty-six degrees.

If you must walk here in summer, go at first light, choose a route that is genuinely short and ends at a station rather than in the middle of the plateau, and turn around when you have drunk half your water rather than when you feel like it. Better still, keep Garraf for spring and autumn and spend the summer weekends higher up where the air is thinner and the beech gives shade.