Levadas and Peaks of Madeira

With its rugged coastal scenery, impressive volcanic geology and lush levada trails, the Portuguese island of Madeira is a walker’s paradise. The week of hiking with our KE Adventures group was exceptional with six varied day hikes spread over most of the island. Our guide, Roberto, was passionate about his native land and a wealth of knowledge, historical, geological, and botanic. We walked and hiked through terraced farmland, explored extensive laurel forest, negotiated almost two dozen tunnels and crossed numerous jagged green ridges to some amazing viewpoints. The network of trails is truly incredible, with many following levadas, the water channels that collect water from the mountains, channeling and distributing it for hydroelectricity generation, agricultural irrigation, and drinking water. There are over 1300 miles of levadas and all the major ones have walking paths alongside, which follow the contours of the land with only a 4 degree average slope. They make for a nice change from the mountain paths, which seem to be always either steeply ascending or descending the rugged terrain.

A Google Earth map of the island of Madeira. Madeira is about 35 miles long and about 14 miles across at its widest point. We started and ended our week in Funchal, but also stayed in Paul Do Mar and Porto Moniz in the west and in Santana to the north of the main mountain range.

Much of Madeira remains covered in laurisilva forest, a botanical relic that dates back about 20 million years, and is classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The Laurisilva covers about 20% of the Island of Madeira (15,000 hectares) most of which is part of the protected Madeira Natural Park. The forest captures the moisture from the Atlantic clouds, resulting in high humidity and biodiversity, with about 150 of 760 plant species being endemic. (There are also unfortunately several species of nasty invasives, including eucalyptus and mimosa). Take a look at some of my photo highlights from the six day trip. . .

View of the central massif and the Paul da Serra plateau from above Curral das Freiras on day 1.

Trail side flowers seen leaving Curral das Freiras (Nun’s Valley)

Some of our group of 13 at a rest stop below Boca do Serra (the col partly seen on the left here)

View from Boca do Serra with Curral das Freiras far below on the left

More trail side flowers. I struggled to remember any of the names of the flowers Roberto so ably identified for us.

A stream in a rocky gorge on the Ribeiro do Poco. It was a great place to cool my feet.

Madeira’s Pride and waterfall above Paul do Mar, day 2

Looking back to Paul do Mar harbor. The path can be seen zig-zagging on the left here.

Paul do Mar. We stayed two nights at a very nice hotel in this town on the southwest coast.

A levada distribution point along the Levada Calheta Nova.

Roberto crossing a stream on the levada portion of our hike on day 2

Fields and coast along Levada Calheta Nova

Path through the native laurisilva forest on day 3. A cloud forest ecosystem is prevalent at intermediate altitudes on much of Madeira.

Levada Ribeira da Janela path and waterfall

Another view of the Levada Ribeira da Janela path. Many of the main levadas have been concretized over the past 40 years or so.

Our improbable trail head on day 4, above the wild west coast

The coast view from our trail head. It doesn’t look possible, but we hiked down to the coast from here. The cables are part of the cable car system, which one client availed himself of.

Some of our group ascending from the coast. We had two 500 meter descents and one ascent on this tough hike.

View descending towards Porto Moniz, where we stayed two nights.

Park Forestal Queimadas, our trail head on day 5

Levada Caldeirao waterfall. I stitched this together from five photos.

Lush vegetation along the unconcretized Levada Caldeirao. There are about 70 species of fern on Madeira.

Caldeirao Verde waterfall, about 80 meters high

The Vagabond Hiker with Roberto and two other clients at a levada tunnel entrance. Photo courtesy of Joe.

Some of our group descending a hollow way. Over hundreds of years stock transhumance has eroded some areas along the north coast.

Pico Ruivo (1862m) summit “view” on day 6. This is the high point on Madeira and was our toughest hike.

A dead heather along the amazing balcony route between Pico Ruivo and Pico do Arieiro (1810m), the third highest point on the island. There was a major fire in 2010 that destroyed much of the slow-growing native heather.

Some of our group hiking along the balcony route towards Pico do Arieiro

Part of the “Stairway to Heaven”. The airier portions were generally protected by cables.

View above the clouds near Pico Arieiro summit.

Lest you draw the incorrect conclusion that my time on Madeira has been all tough hiking, this last photo was taken from my penthouse apartment balcony at sunset, where I have stayed the last four days reading, walking along the promenade, swimming, stand up paddle-boarding, eating fresh seafood and just enjoying the fine weather.

I have updated my calendar through September. See the tab on the upper right. With the exception of two weeks in July, I will be spending the next six months in Europe. During those blank spaces on the calendar I will be on the south coast of England near Hastings. My next post will likely be in April from there. If not, it will be in mid-May from the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. Until then, keep hiking!

The Vagabond Hiker

Levadas and Peaks of Madeira

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