The Jaca Mountain Office has just completed its first year operating with a total of 2,300 visitors. Now, the next step is to consolidate itself as a specialized training resource and for this, it will teach its first cartography and orientation courses and another one on activity planning this summer. The latter is the “basic course that all those who want to go to the mountains should do”, says Íñigo Ayllón, director of the Jaca Mountain Office. The second is equally important, since “planning is done with a map, not with a wikiloc track”, adds Ayllón. The cartography and orientation will take place on July 26 and July 27 and on August 25 and 26 and the second on August 4 and 5. In all three cases, the course includes an afternoon session with theoretical questions and a practical part in the morning.
In addition, throughout the year, the training will be extended to the different sports clubs in the city and to schools to prepare the little ones for both White Week and summer activities. The launch of these courses “was almost an obligation after the visits and the questions of the visitors”underlines the director of the office.
The pending subject of this entity is create the Mountain Museum in Jacaas stated by Carlos Ayora, president of the Spanish Federation of Mountain and Climbing Sports, FEDME. It would be the first in Spain. “It has to be in Jaca and we are going to work from now on”, adds Ayora. She has also announced that this 2022, when the Federation turns 100, they will award the centenary prize to the Municipal Corporation, as a sign of recognition for the support and reference that Jaca represents as a mountain city.
The director of the Mountain Office explained that in this first year 2,300 visits have been received, with between 6 and 7 queries on average per day in 4 daily opening hours. Therefore, it is “more than one service per hour”. Visitors are mainly Aragonese, “but those from the Basque Country and Madrid exceed those from Aragon”, and they also come from Valencia or Catalonia, among others. They also receive visits from foreigners, “Germans, French, English or even from Peru or the United States.”
Ayllón has noted that for months, July and August are the ones that receive the most visits, followed by January. In addition, in winter, bulletins are made and published on the conditions in which the Pyrenees is found, “information of irreplaceable value because they are made with information from the two people who work in the office and who go out to the mountains every day, together with with guides and people who come out and update us.” In summer, these bulletins inform about the situation of the ravines.
53% of the people who have requested information in the office are between 30 and 49 years old and 57% are men. The schedule, either for direct attention (75%), by phone (21%) or telematically – email and social networks – (4%) is from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in summer and from 4:00 p.m. 30 to 20:30 in winter time, and during the 7 days of the week.
Likewise, the data from the web and the networks social of the Office collect a high demand for information. The website (www.oficinainformacionmontaña.es) receives an average of 3,000 visits per month.
“The Jaca Mountain Office is not only a benchmark in mountain information throughout Spainas it is the first resource of its kind that has been openedbut also, it has given Jaca great visibility by taking the name of the city to numerous congresses, conferences and presentations throughout Spain”, assured Olvido Moratinos, Councilor for Tourism