* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
At 1045 meters above sea level in the d’os Fils massif we find the fantasy world of mallos and galocho, which we can discover in this series of images in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia.
The mallos are geological formations that form crags with vertical walls, located in the town of Riglos, about 45 km northwest of the capital Huesca, in the mountains of the Huesca Pre-Pyrenees.
They reach a maximum height of 275 meters (on the northern spur of Pisón) and are characterized by the fact that they are also highly appreciated for climbing.
In Aragon these extraordinary reddish geological formations characteristic of La Hoya de Huesca are called “mallos”. These mallos of the Pre-Pyrenees are protected under the figure of Mallos de Riglos, Aguero and Peña Rueba Natural Monument.
“Mallo” is an Aragonese term, but each one has its own name, which in some cases coincides with the name of some houses in Riglos (such as Firé and Pisón). Other forms are defined by their characteristic shape or color (the Cigar, the Knife, the Visera, del Agua, os Fils, Colorado, Magdalena, Aguja Roja, Tornillo, Tornillito) or are named in homage to people (de los Castellanos, Melchor Frechín, Roberto Martí Chichín, José Enrique Herrera, Mariano Cored, Víctor Carilla, Luis Gómez Laguna, General Capaz, Don Justo).
For their part, the small mallos are known as “os galochos”. In Aragonese, galacho or galocho means a narrow area or area with vertical walls created by water erosion. Each mallo has its own “galocho”.
The Mallos were formed by the Alpine orogeny, which began about 65 million years ago, when the Pyrenees were created. The subsequent erosion of the water has been isolating and modeling them, giving rise to the current giant rocky walls that are distributed along the southern face of the outer Sierras of the Pre-Pyrenees.
The Riglos mallos, located on the banks of the Gállego river, are the most famous, but in this same area we can find others, such as those of Agüero, Vadiello, Murillo de Gállego and the Salto de Roldán.
