Walking in the Cordillera Cantabrica - Northern Spain

This mountaineering guidebook describes 60 routes spread around Spain's Cordillera Cantabrica range. Based on selected valley bases with easy access. All the routes are circular and can be done in a day, whilst in difficulty they vary from straightforward, half-day outings to strenuous, full-day ascents.

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5.11  Peña Rueda (2155m) from Lindes

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Start: From Proaza drive S through Bárzana, the district capital, and on through Santa Marina, where you take the minor road to Lindes. Park by the church.
Maps: Adrados, Macizo de Peña Ubiña, 1:25,000
Distance: 14
Total ascent: 1250m
Time: 6–7h
Grading: Quite a full day, beginning on good tracks but moving onto open rocky terrain as height is gained above the Vallina Grande. Occasional straightforward scrambling, and possible navigation problems just before Manín de Arriba.

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This was the walk, more than any other perhaps, that finally woke me up to the importance of getting a weather forecast before choosing an outing in these mountains. Whilst a number of friends suffered two dismal, wet days to the south of the Cordillera Cantábrica, I enjoyed blustery but dry weather as I bivvied then walked in the rain-shadow of the Ubiña massif. In the clear air of late November the summit of Peña Rueda, isolated from its neighbours, gave splendid views over the whole of central and eastern Asturias, and then further still to the Picos de Europa. The walking is varied, and in places spectacular, as Peña Rueda demonstrates once again that the best views and adventures are not necessarily on the highest summits.

Route
From the end of the road in Lindes head S out of the village, past a primitive-looking bar on the L. Turn R immediately after this and walk uphill on a well-used trail, going almost immediately past a drinking trough and spring by huts. The trail then reaches a point where it climbs steeply up shaley ground, dividing by a signpost for the Foz Grande (20–25 mins). This is the way the route returns, but you go straight on and climb up into a beech wood. Cross this, rising gently throughout despite the path becoming steadily poorer, and arrive at the meadow at Manín de Arriba (30–35 mins), with its solitary shepherd’s hut and a novel drinking trough in marshy ground just beyond. Ecology and recycling are nothing new in this neck of the woods.

Climbing steadily up and away from Manín, head for the broad break to the left of the walls above the hut. The initially intermittent path improves as height is gained and the gap itself is entered, and, after a momentary steepening with a clear path in the rock, a vast, open rocky valley is entered, the Vallina Grande (40–45 mins).

This you attack by its left edge, with spectacular drops down into the Puertos de Agüeria and the Foz Grande, the area which the route takes during its latter stages. The edge is followed first W, then NW and finally N to the summit, passing the unusual Vaso de Rueda (40–50 mins) not long before it comes to the summit of Peña Rueda (15–20 mins). The odd stone walling just off the main summit is a remnant of the civil war, something which is relatively frequent along the whole of the Cordillera Cantábrica, as Claudio Cabrero explains in greater detail in her article on the civil war (below). The summit is a magnificent lookout, with even the Bay of Biscay visible to the NNE on a fine day.

To continue, drop down the NW spur, steep and uncomfortable at first, but easing as the saddle at Las Colladiellas is reached (35–40 mins). On the Adrados map a route is marked off to the NE, but you drop down W to a track which leads briefly S then comes to a halt. Continuing on animal paths leads to the broad col at Lingleo (35 mins), and once again the magnificent alpine meadows of the Puertos de Agüeria lie at your feet.

Here the route joins one of the classics of Asturian mountaineering, the traverse from Ricabo to Lindes, as you descend from the col past the huts at La Cardosina. Cont­inuing along a narrow path at the very base of Peña Rueda’s southern slopes, the path is forced to cross the river and climb slightly to the entrance to the Foz Grande (30 mins). This, as its name suggests, is a huge and very spectacular gorge, although fortunately the coming and going of farmers and livestock in the past, and of mountaineers today, means that there is a good path almost throughout. The only weak point in the path is where it crosses back to the river’s L bank, a crossing which may not be that easy in the early spring, when snowmelt and rainfall significantly swell the stream.

After crossing the river the path climbs up through woods to El Collau (25–30 mins), a small meadow in the shadow of a limestone crag. Leave this passing below the crag and drop down a muddy trail which eventually leads back to the steep shaley ground of the morning (25–30 mins). Not long after this you are back in Lindes, with the chance to join the locals in the tiny bar, which (as is always the case with these places) proves to be a memorable experience.