Long before refrigerators, freezers and bags of ice from the petrol station, keeping something cold on the Costa Blanca required considerably more effort.
You needed a mountain. Preferably one covered in snow.
From the 16th century onwards, people working in the mountains of the Alicante province collected winter snow, packed it into enormous stone pits and preserved it for months.
Then, when temperatures on the coast were soaring, muleteers carried the precious cargo down from places such as Sierra de Mariola and Sierra de Aitana.
They often travelled at night.
Not because the ice was contraband, as some versions of the story suggest.
They were racing something far more difficult to negotiate with.
The sun.
The Costa Blanca once had an ice trade industry
It sounds improbable today, particularly during an Alicante August, but snow was once big business in this part of Spain.
Before mechanical refrigeration, snow and ice had commercial value.
People used it to cool food and drinks, make frozen desserts and sorbets, and for various medical purposes.
The mountains inland from the Costa Blanca provided the raw material.
Sierra de Mariola became one of the most important centres of the trade, while snow wells and ice houses also appeared around Sierra de Aitana and other high areas of Alicante province.
The industry flourished particularly between the 16th and 19th centuries.
And some of the enormous structures it left behind are still standing.
Meet the neveros
The buildings went by names including neveras, pozos de nieve and cavas.
They were essentially giant refrigerators powered by winter.
Many consisted of a deep circular pit lined with stone, sometimes with much of the storage chamber below ground. Thick walls and carefully designed roofs helped protect the contents from warmer outside temperatures.
During periods of heavy snow, teams of workers collected snow from the surrounding slopes and carried it to the cava.
Then came the exhausting bit.
The snow had to be packed down.
Workers compressed it into dense layers, separating sections with straw or other plant material to provide insulation and make the frozen mass easier to cut later.
Layer after layer went into the pit.
By the end of winter, an enormous quantity of compacted snow could be waiting underground.
Stomping snow was an actual job
The work was intensely physical.
Snow had to be gathered, transported, thrown into the pit and compressed before warmer weather arrived.
Workers inside the cava packed the snow beneath their feet or used tools to compress it.
Cold, damp conditions combined with hard manual labour, while the deep storage pits themselves presented obvious dangers.
But if enough snow could be stored successfully, winter weather became a product that could still be sold months later.
Essentially, people were putting January in a hole and saving it for August.
Summer was when the real race began
Once customers needed ice, workers cut into the compacted snow and removed blocks for transport.
The ice was wrapped and insulated using materials such as straw, blankets and sacks.
Then it headed downhill.
Mules and other pack animals carried loads along mountain tracks towards towns and cities.
Night travel was particularly important.
Every hour spent under the Mediterranean sun meant part of the cargo disappearing into water.
Moving after sunset reduced losses and gave traders a better chance of reaching customers with something worth selling.
So those dark journeys through the mountains were real.
The smuggling part is another matter.
The ice was not being smuggled
Descriptions of the old trade sometimes make it sound wonderfully illicit, with muleteers sneaking through mountain passes in darkness carrying forbidden blocks of ice.
The historical evidence tells a less criminal story.
This was a regulated commercial activity.
Snow rights could be owned, leased and taxed. Municipal authorities and other institutions controlled aspects of its collection and sale, while contracts governed supplies to towns.
The muleteers were travelling at night mainly because ice melts.
That may be less dramatic than evading the authorities, but taking a mule loaded with melting ice down a rough mountain track in darkness hardly sounds like an easy shift!
Sierra de Mariola became snow country
Some of the finest surviving evidence of the trade can be found in Sierra de Mariola.
The landscape still contains numerous caves and snow wells, reminders of an industry that once connected these high mountains with communities far beyond them.
One of the most impressive is Cava Gran near Agres.
Its huge circular stone structure has become one of the most recognisable sights in the natural park.
The cava dates from the 17th century and was used to store enormous quantities of snow.
Its scale tells you immediately that this was not simply a farmer keeping a little ice for his household.
This was infrastructure.
Cava Gran could hold hundreds of tonnes
Cava Gran is roughly 15 metres in diameter and around 17 metres deep.
Its capacity ran to hundreds of cubic metres of snow.
Workers filled the chamber during winter and compressed the snow into dense layers.
The architecture helped keep the stored snow insulated while allowing workers to access it when required.
Today, standing beside the enormous pit makes the old industry much easier to understand.
Someone had to build it, someone had to fill it and someone had to climb down into it.
And months later, someone had to get all that ice back out again.
Ice travelled towards the coast
The stored snow did not remain in the mountains.
It supplied towns across the region, including coastal communities where summer temperatures made ice particularly valuable.
Alicante was an important market.
Valencia also consumed substantial quantities of mountain snow, although supply networks varied and different mountain areas served different destinations.
Transport was expensive and melting was unavoidable, so speed mattered.
The journey had to be carefully organised to minimise the amount lost before the load reached its destination.
What did people actually do with it?
Cooling drinks was certainly part of the attraction.
Wealthier households, inns and establishments could serve chilled beverages during hot weather, a considerable luxury before refrigeration.
Snow also helped produce early frozen treats.
Spain already had a tradition of chilled drinks, sorbets and preparations influenced by centuries of Mediterranean and Arabic food culture. Ready access to stored snow made them possible during warmer months.
But the trade was not solely about giving wealthy people a cold drink.
Snow and ice also had medical uses.
Doctors used cold treatments for conditions including fever and inflammation, and hospitals and charitable institutions could form part of the market.
Food preservation provided another use, although the role of snow varied according to place and period.
Sierra de Aitana had its own snow wells
Mariola was not alone.
Sierra de Aitana also preserves traces of the snow trade.
Its altitude meant substantial winter snowfall could accumulate, providing communities with another seasonal resource.
Snow wells were built around the mountain and connected to routes leading towards lower settlements and the coast.
Today, it can be difficult to reconcile this history with the Costa Blanca sold on sunshine.
But climb into the mountains during winter and the picture changes rapidly.
Aitana rises to more than 1,500 metres.
Snow is hardly an impossible visitor up there.
The arrival of artificial ice changed everything
The mountain snow trade eventually met an opponent it could not outrun.
Technology.
During the 19th century, industrial methods of producing ice began changing the economics of keeping things cold.
Factories could manufacture ice without waiting for snow.
Production could take place close to customers.
There was no need to store winter weather for months or send mule trains down from the mountains.
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the traditional snow trade declined dramatically.
Many neveras were abandoned.
Roofs collapsed.
Vegetation crept over stonework.
An industry that had operated for centuries gradually became archaeology.
The giant refrigerators are still there
That is what makes the story so easy to miss.
Some of the infrastructure survived.
Walk through Sierra de Mariola today and you can still encounter huge circular stone structures standing among the mountain vegetation.
Without knowing their purpose, they can look like strange ruined towers, wells or agricultural buildings.
Bridging the Gap’s recap
- Snow and ice became an important commercial product in the mountains of Alicante province from around the 16th century.
- Sierra de Mariola and Sierra de Aitana both preserve historic snow wells and ice houses.
- The structures were known as neveras, cavas or pozos de nieve.
- Workers packed winter snow into deep stone chambers and compressed it into dense layers.
- Straw and other materials helped separate and insulate the stored snow.
- Muleteers often transported ice at night to reduce melting during the journey.
- The trade was regulated rather than a clandestine smuggling operation.
- Ice supplied towns including Alicante and was used for drinks, frozen foods and medical purposes.
- Cava Gran near Agres is one of the most impressive surviving examples of the old snow industry.
- Artificial ice and modern refrigeration eventually brought the mountain snow trade to an end.
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