El Bosque del Centinela is a one-square-kilometer area of woodland located just over two kilometers north of the northern Guadalajara Periférico or beltway.
The woodland was donated to the municipality of Zapopan in 1967 after years of devastation by Guadalajara’s growing population, which regarded it as a fine source of firewood. Since then, various reforestation plans have produced impressive growths of eucalyptus, pine, ash, oak, acacia and silk-cotton trees, among others. While some parts of the park are flat and suitable for picnicking, much of it is hilly, thickly wooded and crisscrossed with hiking and biking trails.
“You could say that trail-blazing got a bit out of control here in Centinela Park,” said path-making expert Alicia Castillo, director of Senderos de México, a recently founded organization which is setting up a national trail system that might someday make it possible for hikers and cyclists to traverse all of Mexico without ever getting lost.
In Centinela, however, “somebody gets lost every weekend,” said Castillo, whose organization is working with the Ayuntamiento de Zapopan to create a small number of properly marked trails and allow the rest to go back to nature.
Castillo’s technical consultants, Raúl Campos and Omar Ceja, showed me the trail-marking system followed by Senderos. “It’s the Grande Randonnée (GR) code used in France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands,” they explained. This simple system consists of two horizontal bars to show you’re on the right trail. These are painted on trees and rocks with “eco-friendly” paint. Right-angle versions of the bars indicate a left or right turn. If you should see the two bars crossed, however, it means you’ve wandered off the right path and you’d better backtrack. Mexico will use white and red bars for long trails, white and yellow for short ones.
In the Bosque del Centinela, Senderos de México was assisted by volunteers from famed computer giant Oracle, to create the forest’s first trail marked with GR symbols.
“The company encourages us to get involved with our local communities,” Oracle volunteer Luis González told me. “They don’t tell us what to do, but if we come up with good ideas, the company supports them and encourages other employees to get involved. We figure a project like this one with Senderos benefits everybody, our families, our children and the community in general.”
González added that Oracle volunteers have participated in other community programs in the past. “We’ve worked with the Trompo Magico (children’s museum) to hold workshops for students and to show the staff how to do structural pruning for their trees and we’ve also participated in disaster relief for earthquake victims.”
Castillo said she expects natural areas like Centinela and El Diente to be linked by well-marked trails within three years.
“Similar projects are planned for the Lake Chapala area,” she said. Near the lake, the coordinator for trail making and marking is Jim Boles.
Would you like to try out the first Sendero in Centinela Park? It’s only 1.8 kilometers long, suitable for the whole family, including your dog. Just follow the directions below and don’t forget your mosquito repellent.
How to get there
Take the Periférico) north to Plaza San Isidro shopping center. Here take Avenida Camino a Bosque de San Isidro for 2.16 kilometers north and carefully watch for a big “Bienvenido” sign on your right. Next to the sign is a large iron gate to the park, but the public is not allowed to use it. Instead, immediately past the gate, you’ll find a small, easy-to-miss entrance to an unpaved public parking area. Leave your car here and walk a few steps to the trail head (N20.76146 W103.38206) of an easy 1.8-kilometer-long hike at the southwest corner of the park. You can download the 1.8-kilometer trail to your smartphone by going to Wikiloc.com and searching for “Centinela Loop One,” but the new trail markers are so good, you shouldn’t need Wikiloc’s help at all.
Driving time from the Periférico to the woods: about four minutes.