About Cascada del Molino
The Cascada del Molino de la Chorrera literally stole the show away from the disappointing Nacimiento del Río Cuervo during our early June visit in 2015.
Indeed, this understated waterfall on the Río Júcar was still performing while the other one was hardly visible against the karstic rocks beneath.
In fact, we weren’t even planning on visiting this waterfall.
Accidentally Stumbling Upon Cascada del Molino
However, that changed when I drove to the Nacimiento del Rio Cuervo and saw a waterfall sign with the Río Júcar words scrawled on the signposted photo.
It planted the seed in my mind that maybe we should consider making a visit after visiting the Nacimiento del Rio Cuervo.
Then, when the Nacimiento del Río Cuervo disappointed us, that pretty much sealed the deal to pursue the Cascada del Molino.
Needless to say, this act of curiosity paid off as you can see in the photo above!
The word molino means “mill” in Spanish, and I suspect that the building adjacent to the brink of the falls could very well be a mill, which might explain how this waterfall got its name.
From what we could tell, we weren’t able to gain any access through the mill in order to get an unusual top-down perspective of the falls.
So instead, we had to do the sanctioned way of walking on a longer trail to get to its base.
Hiking to the Cascada del Molino
The hike to the Cascada del Molino began from a signposted path right off the narrow access road following the Río Júcar from Tragacete (see directions below).
This road quickly descended one long switchback towards a bridge spanning the Río Júcar.
On the opposite side of the bridge was a picnic area.
We continued left as we hiked in an upstream direction to get closer to the waterfall.
Since the vegetation was thick around the river, we weren’t able to get any satisfying views of the Cascada del Molino from a distance.
Neither were we able to gain a fruitful perspective of the mini canyon carved out by the river.
Indeed, it wasn’t until 15 minutes later that we passed by another pair of picnic tables before briefly climbing right up to the main waterfall to finally get our clean looks at it.
Since the trail ended at a small lookout practically right in front of the waterfall, it was hard to truly get a good perspective of just how big this waterfall was (let alone photograph it since we were so close to it).
It turned out that the main drop that we were in front of was probably on the order of 15-20m or so though it looked a lot bigger than that from the road leading up to the mill.
Perhaps it was because the Río Júcar cascaded and tumbled for a bit more before continuing its flow as a typical river.
In any case, we spent about 45 minutes away from the car so the hiking wasn’t very long at all.
Julie and I were the only ones on the trail until we returned from the hike.
That was when there was a family that was using the picnic tables near the bridge.
So that kind of attested to how much quieter this waterfalling experience was compared to the Nacimiento del Río Cuervo, which seemed to have non-stop foot traffic (yet another plus for the Cascada del Molino over the Cascada del Rio Cuervo).
Authorities
Cascada del Molino de la Chorrera resides near the town of Tragacete near the town and province of Cuenca, Spain. It may be administered by the Parque Natural Serranía de Cuenca. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you may want to visit this website.
Driving to Cascada del Molino de la Chorrera from Madrid, we navigated the maze of city streets to get to the nearest on-ramp for an autovía due east.
The best autovía to take was the A-3 (Autovía del Este), which headed in a southeasterly direction before continuing east (towards Valencia).
After about 82km, we then junctioned off the A-3 for the A-40 (Autovía Castilla la Mancha), which continued to the east towards Cuenca.
We would follow the A-40 for the next 79km before heading north on the Cm-2105 road, which would twist its way into the Serranía de Cuenca mountains.
After about 58km the Cm-2105 road became the Cm-2106 (keeping left to continue going north), then after about another 7km, we’d enter the town of Tragacete.
Right across from the town’s center was a signposted turnoff to the right, which crossed a bridge then followed a rural road for the next 2km or so.
Right about this point in the narrow road, there was the signposted trailhead for the Cascada del Molino on the right.
On the left were small pullouts where we managed to stop the car and get out of the way so traffic can still pass through this narrow road.
This drive would take probably close to three hours in each direction.
Just a few hundred meters beyond this trailhead was the mill by the brink of Cascada del Molino.
However, we didn’t see any parking spots near the mill.
If there’s no parking space right across from the trailhead, we noticed that there were some parking spaces further back down the narrow road.
Of course, the farther away you park, the more you’ll have to walk just to get up to the trailhead.
Sometimes I wondered if that was the intent of the authorities here because there were numerous interpretive signs along this road, which only walkers and bicyclists would have the ability to stop and check out).
For some additional context, Cuenca was 140km (under 2 hours drive) east of Madrid, 226km (over 2 hours drive) east of Toledo, and 199km (over 2 hours drive) west of Valencia.
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Top down sweep of the falls before walking away from it to try to show it in better context
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