The Tourist Board of the Provincial Council of Lleida proposes 26 new hiking routes through the Lleida Pyrenees.

The brochure Pas a pas aims to boost hiking in these regions. Its publication coincides with the creation of the Professional Hiking Association of the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida. The Provincial Council of Lleida, through the Tourist Board, wants to promote and boost hiking activity in all the regions of Lleida. With this objective, the Tourist Board has published the Hiking Guide of the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida, entitled “Pas a pas”. The publication date of the guide coincides with the creation of the Professional Hiking Association of the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida, which has had the support of the Provincial Council's Tourist Board. The new hiking guide includes 26 different routes, two per region, distributed in the geographical areas of the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida. Each route includes the region through which it runs, a map, its graphic altimetry, a brief description and the main places of interest. It also incorporates pictograms with information about the duration, accumulated elevation, distance, difficulty, starting point and time of year. The guide is adapted to new technologies. By activating the route on the GPS and through a QR code, the itineraries can be followed in real time from the mobile phone. The maps and GPS tracks linked to the QR code are compatible with Android mobile phones, iPhones and tablets. The routes included in the new guide in the Pyrenees regions are the following: Camí d'Ansovell and Ruta del Corb, in Alt Urgell; Camí de l'Aigua and Ruta del Romànic 1, in Alta Ribagorça; Ruta dels Llacs de la Pera and Pic del Moixeró, in Cerdanya; Camí de Rus and Congost de Mont-rebei, in Pallars Jussà; Passeig pel Llac de Montcortès i el bosc encantat and Pels camins de les Veus del Pamano 1, in Pallars Sobirà; Mare de la Font-Castellvell and Route from Sant Serni del Grau to the Sanctuary of Lord, in Solsonès, and, finally, Route of the beech forest of Carlac and Route of the 7 lakes of Colomèrs, in Val d'Aran. As for the regions of Terres de Lleida, the guide includes the following itineraries: Route of the stone huts and Route of the Transllena, in Les Garrigues; Route of the Mu Gorge and Route of the Mont-rebei Gorge, in Noguera; Route of Lake Ivars and Vila-sana and Route of the Canal, in Pla d'Urgell; Route of Aubaga-Solana through the Protected Natural Area of the Llobregós River Valley and Route of the Cercavins, in Segarra; Route of the Pantà d'Utxesa and De l'Aiguabarreig to Montmaneu, in Segrià, and, finally, Route of the Bovera and the Corb and Route along the banks of the Sió, in Urgell. It is worth noting that hiking and trekking routes are breaking records for participation in the different scheduled crossings and have become a top-notch tourist activity, thanks, in large part, to the creation of itineraries that run through some of the most evocative places in the Pyrenees and the Lleida plain. 12,000 copies of the Hiking Guide to the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida have been published in six languages: Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Dutch and German. The Professional Hiking Association of the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida is born The regions of Lleida offer an extensive network of hiking routes and this activity has become an important axis of local economic development for some rural territories that often fall outside the mass tourist circuits. Faced with this reality, the Association of Professionals for Hiking in the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida has been created, which was created with the support of the Tourism Board of the Provincial Council of Lleida and whose objectives are to integrate business people in the sector, promote its activity and highlight its advantages. The Association of Professionals for Hiking in the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida was created with the aim of integrating all business people in the sector, both individual entrepreneurs and legally constituted legal entities, in order to strengthen the business fabric and, at the same time, solidarity between the various tourism companies through the promotion and creation of common services based on the practice of hiking. All hiking and/or ecotourism companies, as well as active tourism companies that offer a significant percentage of specific hiking activities in their product catalog, can join the association. The association is also open to local guides and workers with activities linked to hiking, to regulated tourist accommodations that organize and promote this activity among their clients, and to taxi drivers or other entrepreneurs dedicated to the mobility of visitors who have links to hiking. Finally, all those companies that can demonstrate a certain degree of dedication to the creation and/or dissemination of hiking products specifically in the regions of Lleida may also form part of it. The association, in addition to representing companies in the sector and defending their particular problems, has also set itself the objectives of promoting the practice of hiking and creating information and training channels for members. Finally, it will also work on the promotion of the activity and the marketing of the proposals carried out by companies, both individually and collectively, with the aim of turning hiking into a first-rate asset within the nature tourism offer of the regions of the Pyrenees and Terres de Lleida. At the founding meeting of the Association of Professionals of Hiking in the Pyrenees and the Lands of Lleida, held on January 16 at the Lleida Provincial Council, José Luis García, director of the company Camins de la Val d'Aran, was elected president of the association. The founding ceremony was attended by several businessmen from the Lleida region and the director of the Tourism Board, Jordi Blanch, as well as the Board's technicians. During the meeting, attendees highlighted that, given the country's current economic situation, it is necessary to work to seek the excellence of the territory in terms of tourism, in close cooperation with the various business initiatives that are born within the Lleida region. The objective is to attract and consolidate both the public from the Catalan market and the whole of Spain, as well as the foreign market. Expectations Hiking is a non-competitive sports and recreational activity that, in recent years, has become a very attractive offer for tourists and a local economic development axis for some rural areas that are often left out of mass tourist circuits. Due to the recovery and maintenance of paths and trails, all the Lleida regions, both those on the plain and those in the Pyrenees, currently have an extensive network of hiking routes with tourist, sports and nature routes, of varying difficulty and suitable for all audiences. Many of these routes are also suitable for mountain biking. Source: Butlletí Ara Lleida / Lleidatur, for Chus Castillo Image ownership: InfoPirineu