Crossing "el Forat" (the Hole) towards its north face - Sierra de Bernia route (PR-CV 7) ⛰️🇪🇦

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Full route track - The red line it's the path from my starting point to the hole.

This narrow limestone tunnel 15-20 meters long, through which you have to crawl to complete the route, interconnects the shady and sunny slopes of the Sierra de Bernia and, depending on where you start the route from which it is part and in the direction in which you want to do it, you will go through it towards its north or south face (the most typical thing is to cross it towards its south face, since when you leave the tunnel back you find the beautiful views of the Altea bay).

Altea bay.

South face of the hole.

In my case, and to go against the popular things to do, I completed the route in reverse, starting from the parking lot near Font del Runar.

"The Hole" close up (1).

"The Hole" close up (2).

It's one of the essential hiking routes in Alicante, of medium difficulty, which can take you between 4 or 5 hours (this is the standardized information of the route that is provided on various websites but it will depend on your physical condition, how much your backpack weighs, the footwear you wear and the season of the year in which you do it; in my case I completed it in 2 hours and 45 minutes, taking it easy, 5 kilos of backpack, 30°C average temperature (July) and Salomon XT Wings 3 sneakers).

"The Hole" entrance and exit (light at the the end).

"The light at the end of the tunnel".

Dresden crawling the tunnel.

In my case, I did a total of 11 circular kilometers (without reaching the peak) to complete the full route (you'll see in next articles another points of interest) and +/- 700 meters of accumulated unevenness.

A group of girls waiting for me to go through the tunnel and clapping at the north face (I didn't know them, they were just happy people).

North face views.

(Audio of the video in Spanish).

Video recorded with a GoPro Hero 8.

Photographs are screenshots taken from my videos.

Screenshot of the route taken from Wikiloc.

Sources on which I relied to give some accurate info about "the Hole" and the hiking route: (1), (2), (3), (4)

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