The trail begins before most tourists have stirred: a small group gathers at the Buenavista del Norte bus station, bags tightened, boots still warm from the drive. The guide—part naturalist, part local storyteller—maps the route while the island’s morning light slides over laurel and pine. The first steps are a negotiation with stone: an old shepherd’s path that climbs and drops, alternating sunlit terraces with shaded ravines until the Atlantic appears like a distant sheet of steel and the silhouettes of La Gomera and La Palma hover on the horizon.