Sierra de Guadarrama - Protected Zones

Protected Zones

Today two high traffic areas of the Guadarrama mountains have achieved protected nature reserve status:

• The Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares ("High River basin Regional Park of the Manzanares"), located in the Community of Madrid; the first Sierra de Guadarrama zone to receive protected status. When the designation was first granted it included only La Pedriza (an area including a number of peaks, valleys and rivers in the Guadarramas), but later it was extended to cover the Monte de El Pardo — a densely forested area to the north of Madrid, covering more than 470 square kilometres (181 mile²).
• The Parque Natural de la Cumbre, Circo y Lagunas de Peñalara ( Peñalara's Summit, Cirques and Lakes Natural Park"). The natural park is much smaller and more recently designated than the preceding one, only covering the tallest part of the massif of Peñalara (at 2,428 m the highest mountain in the Sierra de Guadarrama) and one of few glaciers formations of the whole Sistema Central, with three small cirques, two moraines, and almost twenty glacial lakes.

Proposed National Park

For some years a proposal to designate the range as a national park (Parque Nacional de Guadarrama) has been under discussion. This would help protect the range from degradation caused by the heavy human traffic as a result of its proximity to large cities such as Madrid. At the time of writing, the proposal has yet to be agreed.