Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park
| Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park | |
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| Parque natural de la Sierra de las Nieves | |
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| Location | Province of Málaga |
| Coordinates | 36°41′00″N 05°00′00″W / 36.68333°N 5.00000°WCoordinates: 36°41′00″N 05°00′00″W / 36.68333°N 5.00000°W |
| Area | 300 square kilometres (120 sq mi) |
| Established | 1989 |
The Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park (Spanish: Parque natural de la Sierra de las Nieves) is a natural park in the Sierra de las Nieves range, Andalusia, southern Spain. It is located behind Marbella and to the east of the road to Ronda from the Costa del Sol.
The park centres on La Torrecilla (1,919 m), the highest point of the range, and covers an area of 300 km². This mountainous area has a rich variety of flora and fauna. Historically there has been little human influence or agricultural activity in the mountains, which can be snow-covered in the winter, hence their name in Spanish.
The Sierra de las Nieves area was studied in the 19th century by Swiss botanist Pierre Edmond Boissier and in 1933 by Luis Ceballos.
In 1970 a delimited area of the Sierra de las Nieves Range was declared a National Hunting Reserve. In 1989 it was declared a Natural Park covering an area of 202 km². In 1995 it was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and in 1999 the park area was expanded to 300 km².
There are a considerable number of large caves in the park, several taking the traditional form of horizontal caverns. Three are of particular interest, namely:
The area is known for its shafts. One of these, GESM, is one of the deepest in Europe and was named after the Grupo de Exploraciones Subterráneas de Málaga (GESM) that explored it in September 1978. The entrance to this shaft is located at 1670 m and it descends 1098 m with a few large drops. The Gran Pozo drops 115 m and the Pozo Paco de la Torre has a vertical fall of 194 m. At a depth of 900 m there are some interesting rock formations in the Sala de Maravillas, and Lake Ere is located almost at the bottom. It has still not been fully explored.
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