Casa de la Neu
In the shadowy heights of the Sierra del Carrascar de Parcent, 780 meters above sea level, the Casa de Neu stands as a stone testament to a forgotten trade. This circular structure, built in the 18th century, was not just a snow repository: it was an economic and social hub during the Little Ice Age, when ice was worth its weight in reales.
A Cold Storage in the Mountains
With robust walls and buttresses that defy time, the icehouse—7 meters deep and over 12 meters in diameter—stored up to 830 cubic meters of compacted snow. The nevaters covered it with straw and earth, turning winter into a commodity. The ice, extracted in blocks, traveled to towns and cities to preserve food, reduce fevers, or even prepare refreshing drinks in summer. 18th-century documents, such as the letters between the Count of Parcent and his delegate Micó, reveal its value: "3,000 loads of snow, at 10 reales each," Micó calculated in 1755, while the count analyzed costs and designs with a businessman's eye.
The Landscape of a Lost Trade
The Casa de Neu was not alone. Beside it, recently rebuilt, stands the Casa dels Nevaters, a dry-stone refuge where the workers slept. Discovered during restoration work on the icehouse, its reconstruction (inaugurated in September 2024) revives the daily life of those men. Two brothers from Planes led a team of stonemasons who, for months, climbed daily up the steep path from the Fuente de la Foia, carrying tools and water. "We don’t come here to make a living, but for something more," confesses Fran, one of them, as the hammer strikes the stone with echoes of history.
Between Peaks and Memory
From the heights, the landscape unfolds: the Pop valley, the Montgó on the horizon, and below, towns that once depended on this ice. Today, snow is a rarity in the mountains, and the icehouse a symbol of resilience. Its structure, half-buried but sturdy, speaks of communities that knew how to harness the cold as a resource. The Casa dels Nevaters, now restored, completes the story: they didn’t just store ice, they lived alongside it, in a rhythm marked by the seasons.
Both structures, ancient and renewed, are windows into a world where the mountain was factory, warehouse, and home. A legacy that, between stones and melted snow, continues to tell how man turned winter into currency.
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