The road leaves the desert floor near Tabernas and spends about fifteen kilometres drifting upward at 2-3% through bare scrubland, with the Tabernas desert opening out behind you, before the climbing proper starts at the white houses of Velefique. From the village it is roughly 13 km averaging over 7%, and the hardest work comes first: the opening kilometre touches 11% and the first few sit around 10% before the gradient eases. Above the houses there are no trees at all, and the road stacks around twenty hairpins up an open hillside, so every bend hands you a view of the ribbon you have just ridden folded below you. The tarmac is smooth and the traffic is thin, which is a large part of why the climb is worth the drive to reach it. Velefique village has a bar and a restaurant and then there is nothing for the rest of the ascent; the Mirador del Pedregal comes about 500 m from the finish, and the top is a signpost at roughly 1,820 m, reached over a last kilometre that is little more than false flat.