Roque Nublo — rock formation
Image by WunschbrunnenEla from Pixabay

Roque Nublo

  • Elevation1,803 m
  • 1 min read
  • 27.971° N 15.613° W

Interesting facts

  • Geologists call one whole phase of Gran Canaria's volcanic history the Roque Nublo cycle, after the rock it left behind.
  • The stratovolcano whose eruptions produced the rock may have stood around 3,000 metres high, far above anything on the island today.
  • It is the island's third-highest point, after Morro de la Agujereada at 1,956 metres and Pico de las Nieves at 1,949 metres.
  • Older records give the name as Roque Nugro or Roque Nuro, forms later smoothed into the familiar Nublo.
  • Since 2019 the rock has been part of the UNESCO cultural landscape of Risco Caído and the Sacred Mountains of Gran Canaria.
  • Néstor Álamo's 1936 song Sombras del Nublo, recorded by the tenor Alfredo Kraus among others, is regarded as the island's unofficial anthem.
  • The Gran Canaria island council names its yearly award to outstanding people and institutions the Roque Nublo.

Why it is worth it

Roque Nublo is the finger of rock that anchors the skyline of Gran Canaria: an 80-metre monolith standing on a summit plateau at about 1,813 metres, near the geographic centre of the island and among its highest points. From the coast it reads as a single thumb raised above the ridges; up close it becomes a rough, many-layered tower whose surface is studded with embedded stones and pale ash.

That texture tells how it was made. The rock is what erosion has left of a pyroclastic flow – a scalding avalanche of blocks and welded ash thrown out by an explosive stratovolcano between roughly 4.5 and 3.4 million years ago. Softer material around it has washed away over the ages, leaving the hardened core standing alone, with smaller companions nearby: the slender Roque del Fraile, "the Friar", and the rounded formation called La Rana, "the Frog". Long before hikers arrived, the island's pre-Hispanic inhabitants treated the rock as a place of worship.

The name means something like "clouded rock", and the trade-wind clouds often do pour over the central ridges below it. On clear evenings the plateau looks west across the sea to the cone of Teide on Tenerife, and down into the ravines of the Nublo Rural Park. The rock was protected as a natural space in 1987 and declared a Natural Monument in 1994; the monument covers about 450 hectares within the wider rural park, in the municipality of Tejeda.

Getting there

The rock rises in the centre of the island, about 6 km from San Bartolomé de Tirajana; Tejeda is the municipality it belongs to. Gran Canaria Airport (LPA) is about 23 km away in a straight line, but the drive into the mountains is much longer. The usual approach is the short path of about 1.5 km (roughly 40 minutes on foot) from the Degollada de La Goleta pass on the GC-600.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Las Palmas 12The Most Beautiful Places in the Canary Islands 24The Most Beautiful Places in Spain 150The Most Remarkable Rock Formations in Spain 5The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders in the Canary Islands 7The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in Spain 13The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders in Spain 23The Most Spectacular Viewpoints 33The Most Remarkable Rock Formations 107The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments 173The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders 580

From the encyclopaedia

Roque Nublo is a volcanic rock on the island of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. It is 80 m (262 ft) tall, and its top is 1,813 m (5,948 ft) above sea level. The Roque Nublo is the third highest point on the island of Gran Canaria, after the Morro de la Agujereada at 1,956 m (6,417 ft), and the Pico de las Nieves at 1,949 m (6,394 ft).

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

27.97083, -15.61250per Wikidata