picos de europa kit

A brief overview of kit performance or not. We had a surprisingly high amount of kit malfunction on this trip.

The first to go was my Karrimor Kiwi sandals Bought for £25 from Blacks about three years ago. I’ve tramped a number of miles in these and the soles were looking worn. Due to be replaced, I’d hoped that they’d last the summer but unfortunately one of them came apart on day three; the flip flops flopped. Luckily I’ve managed to buy a pair of Teva Terra Fi2’s at 30% off in a mid season sale.

Then there was that seeping feeling. One of the Platys we were using sprang a small leak in that spot at the neck, where no matter what you use or how you try to fix it you know it’ll start sprinkling before you’ve uttered the word incontinence. Fortunately we had packed a 1l platy which took it’s place. I’ve now bought a Source 1.5l bladder to try out.

Camera battery – not really a fault of the camera. I had the opportunity to charge it several times on the trip but I had neglected to take a very important piece of kit in order to do so. Lesson learnt; I will be buying a spare lithium ion battery for future trips.

Cokin camera filter holder - This was a suggestion from George over at Londonbackpacker. You can buy a filter holder that fits compact digital cameras that have a socket for mounting on a tripod. Jessops were having a sale of filters and I was able to pick up a polariser, and a ND2 and 4 graduated filters at half price. In use the filters tame bright skies so that they don't turn out overexposed; a common problem with landscape shots. Although the TZ4 allows bracketing of exposure it needs to be used with a tripod to keep a consistent shot, and I don't own one of these (yet). In use it's a bit fiddly and you cant leave it in place but the results outweigh these minor disadvantages. And as the landscape isn't going to run away you've time to set the holder up.

filter holder with polariser in place

Inov8 Roclite 315 trainers – I cant praise these shoes enough! With a pair of Superfeet insoles (blue ones) replacing the ones supplied, my feet like they were in one of those comfy bucket seats that I once fitted in my Mini. The toe rand meant that I didn’t suffer a stubbed toe and the overly aggressive tread meant that I didn’t once find myself sitting on scree or a wet polished limestone boulder. As an added bonus they also colour co-ordinated nicely with my Exos.

Sea to Summit silnylon shopping bag – a versatile piece of kit that’s compact and only weighs 30g. We used it for shopping, carrying filled platy’s from the tap/spring, as laundry basket and as shoulder bag in the evening.

Sea to Summit bag in stuff sack

Nuun hydration tablets, kona cola flavour - I got these as a freebie when ordering some kit online. I cant state whether they helped or not and not my choice of flavour but as they do a lemon and lime one, I'd think about packing some as a citrus flavour makes a refreshing change to plain water.

The last piece of kit to malfunction was self inflicted. Whilst refilling the Gnome stove the fuel self ignited, not a problem as I’ve had similar with a Trangia before now. On this occasion the fuel bottle (an AGG 300ml one) caught light and started to burn melting the other bottle in the process. Luckily I was able to douse the flames and stop the second bottle from complete melt down.

picos de europa – sotres to espinama

After yesterdays efforts we didn’t hurry our departure from Sotres. I felt fit and unfazed by yesterdays trek, no doubt due to the huge amount of carbohydrate I tucked away the previous evening.The route was straightforward; we were going to take the track through the Valle de Duje, a gorge that runs south to Espinama where there was a possibility of catching a bus to back to Potes or beyond.

The track as far as Vegas del Toro is pretty much usable as a road and part way down was a small parking spot for climbers. The crags weren’t roadside ones, there was a considerable hike up the valley side to the base of the ones mentioned on the information board; like those approaches to crags along the Llanberis Pass but on a much larger scale. Dotted along the valley were meadows where teams of two or more farm workers were using scythes to cut the grass.

We were passed by a number of four by fours heading up to Hotel-Ref Odriozola; this refugio had a bar and bizarrely the passengers, scrubbed up and in their Sunday best, were driving up to take lunch there.

About halfway down the valley there’s a fork in the track below the peak of Prao Cortes. The right hand lead to the hotel the other more directly to our destination. We found a flat spot and had lunch and spotted a couple of vultures feeding on a carcass high on the side of the valley. There were also a number of black birds scavenging on the meadow, I thought they were jackdaws but a closer look revealed that they had red beaks, checking a wildlife book on my return I discovered they were red beaked choughs and close relatives to jackdaws.

We carried on the left hand path, deciding against the detour to the hotel, crossing a wide alpine meadow with grazing sheep, cows and horses. Rock finches flitted amongst the thistles as we approached.

Passing Santluca de Alvia, a seemingly remote church at 1466m, the track starts to improve no doubt to allow access to the church by car. From this point the track begins to decent slowly at first to the Portillas del Boqeron, and then more steeply zig-zagging down though woodland to Espinama.

On this last part of the track we met three guys and a handful of kids. Each of them had natty pairs of walking boots, the obligatory walking cane and a little rucksack on each of their backs. It was very refreshing see kids out on a trek, and more impressive were the adults, apart from huge backpacks they were shouldering they also had sacks full of rubbish lashed to their packs. I’ve never seen that level of responsibility to the environment in the UK sadly. One had a tiny frying pan dangling from his pack, I pointed at it and smiled, and he indicated that it was a necessary bit of kit when camping with kids. I nodded an acknowledgement and headed off. Arriving Espinama we grabbed a well deserved cold beer, and found out that we had about an half an hour wait for the bus.

Our trip around the Picos had come to an end and I was reluctant to leave, especially as Espinama has a micro climate similar to the Mediterranean. Sadly on this occasion the bus actually turned up and whisked us away.

fabada

I fell in love with this dish whilst away in the Picos, and on my return I wanted to have a stab at creating my own. Here's my take on the dish, now if only I could make it trail friendly!

Ingredients

Olive oil
Small onion, roughly chopped
Six cloves of garlic, crushed
one carrot, quartered
one stick of celery quartered
four rashers of streaky bacon, quartered
150g diced chorizo
Six quality sausages
250g dried white kidney beans
One bay leaf
One tsp of smoked paprika
Black pepper
Half a tsp of turmeric (use saffron if you have it)
One litre of stock (low salt chicken or vegetable)

Notes

The diced chorizo is the hard cooking stuff, sliced wouldn't work with this dish. Low salt stock is essential as the chorizo will make the dish salty enough. I used Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Toulouse sausages for this dish, any quality sausages of this type will suffice. You will need patience preparation and cooking time is circa 30 hours (not all of it over a hot stove, though!) A heavy cast iron or heavy bottomed pan with lid is an ideal vessel for the cooking of this dish. This makes more than enough for two, to serve four use 500g beans and before serving quarter the sausages.

What to do

Soak the kidney beans in enough water to cover overnight, they will swell considerably so make sure they stay covered. Rinse and change the water once or twice.

Heat the olive oil in the pan on a medium heat and add the onion and garlic, stirring until softened and slightly coloured. Add the chorizo and continue stirring until the fat and colour starts to run. Add all the other ingredients, give it a stir to mix them together and bring to the boil. Turn down to the lowest heat and cover with lid.

Check the stew every half hour or so and give it a stir. The beans should remain covered whilst cooking, so you might need to top up the level a bit. After about an hour and a half the beans should be softening nicely. If preparing this dish in advance (a good idea to do this anyway) you can turn off the stew at this point.

There will be about 30 minutes more cooking time left. Pulses are notoriously difficult to estimate cooking times for; the age of the beans, how long they get soaked for affect cooking time. You may need up to two and a half hours to cook this. Only way of knowing is to check the beans. they should be smooth skinned, plump and have a bit of bite to them. If the texture is floury then they aren't cooked yet!

On the run up to serving simmer with the lid off to reduce the liquid, you want a nice thick consistency. Ladle into large bowls and eat with some rustic type bread.

picos de europa – arenas de cabrales to sotres

Although I enjoyed the day off I was keen to get back into the mountains. From the tourist information kiosk we’d picked up some bumf about local way marked routes and walks. The one that caught our eye was a route that followed a Roman Road over the mountains to Tielve which was on the road to Sotres.

From the edge of Arenas de Cabrales the route climbs steadily up switching back and forth to take the sting out of what was 1350m of ascent. We were hailed by a local taking a breather under a tree, he asked where we were heading and we replied, Sotres. We gathered from his reply that he was very impressed at what we were attemping because the route was long and arduous.

Unlike the routes that we’d followed on previous days although this was a way marked path there was a complete lack of them once we’d passed through a gate where the irrigation channel that runs through the Cares Gorge from the damn at Cain that cuts across the mountainside. Due to this and a number of confusing forks in the path we headed further east than we should have done and found ourselves in a high alpine meadow full of cows, goats, horses and deserted farm buildings. We followed the path across the meadow watching Griffon vultures circling on thermals, and when approaching the other side realised why.

There was a steep drop off the meadow. Back tracking across meadow we spotted a silhouette of a walker on the ridge in front of us, then another… We wasted no time heading for that point and found that we had rediscovered the route that we were meant to be following (this section actually had way marks). The route continued to follow this ridge climbing steeply to a meadow, then up to another hump of a summit, then another meadow and so on.

In the last meadow the path veered sharply up over a saddle and ahead of us we could see the gorge that we were going to follow tomorrow back to our starting point. We started our descent to Tielve. Originally we were going to head there, hit the road and follow that into Sotres. I’m no fan of road walking and as we were in some of the most spectacular countryside it seemed a bit silly not to make the most of it.

There were several paths marked on the map so we continued journey on those. This last part was particularly hard – it had been overcast most of the day and being up high there was a faint breeze but down in the valley the sun came out determined to make up for lost time, and in the shelter of the valley the breeze was no where to be felt. We were also tired; we’d done huge amount of ascent and descent and had covered at least 13 miles by that time. We were hungry too, I fumbled my last jelly baby as my hands were shaking from a hypo. A strawberry jam portion found it’s way out of my bag and onto my tongue, just enough to get me into the village.

We booked into Hostal Perdiz, had a saunter around the few shops picked up some more supplies, especially a couple bars of chocolate, one of which I part demolished. Back at the Hostal we took one look at the menu and were sitting at a table without hesitation; rice salad, followed by egg, chorizo and chips and a rice pudding. All the carbohydrate we could possibly want for us to sink our teeth into! After the meal we took ourselves up to our room and after shower it was lights out.

picos de europa – stinky cheese, cider and bean stew

After three days of trekking we decided to take a rest day. We also needed to find some more supplies so we headed off to Arenas de Cabrales, which was only 6km away. Unfortunately as there was no path to follow it meant tramping along the road (it goes without saying that there wasn’t a bus service either!)

Our clothes and kit were still damp from yesterdays drenching but they soon dried out as we clumped along the road, it wasn’t busy but I was glad to get off it when we got to town.

We made a quick visit to the tourist information kiosk, and then we found ourselves a place for the night; a delightful room in a pensionne on a small square. A flurry of activity followed; kit was hung up, socks and smalls washed (along with the people who’d worn them), and with shopping bag in hand we set out for a tour of the town.

This area of Asturias in famed for it’s stinky blue cheese called Cabrales, cider and a bean stew called Fabada. The dish is made with white kidney beans, chorizo, morchilla and saffron. We bought some Cabrales cheese, restocked our supplies and tried some cider whilst avoiding a downpour.

The funny thing about Arenas is that it’s billed as the gateway to the Picos and it reminded us vaguely of Betwys y Coed, especially with the weather being a bit damp. There were even (not very good) gear shops to faff around it.

At that fashionable hour that Spaniards go out for dinner we headed out for what was the best food of the trip; a humongous bowl of Fabada, washed down with a bottle of agreeably robust local red wine.

picos de europa – posada de valdeon to poncebos

The day didn’t go entirely to plan (there seems to be a theme developing here!) The guide book mentioned that there was a bus service running through to Cain at the start of the Cares Gorge. Having wandered around the village the evening before we were unable to find the bus stop and as the park information service office was shut we had no option but to pop back first thing in the morning.

The very helpful Park Warden rang the bus company for us and was told that the bus needed booking twenty four hours in advance. Not very useful. Kindly she asked whether it was at all possible for them to run the bus but the driver had taken his family (presumably in the bus) for a day trip to Bilbao.

We briefly thought about catching a cab but I swiftly dismissed the idea by exclaiming that we were on a walking holiday after all! It happened that after checking the map, and having another chat with warden, there was a path called the Camino de Bustio that ran along the west bank of the Rio Cares all the way to Cain.

The path was well signed, good underfoot and mostly in shade which was good because the day had dawned bright and sunny. The verges were busy with butterflies and an abundance of wild flowers. Grasshoppers jumped on to the path and back out again and common lizards scurried away as we crunched down the path.

After a few kilometres we arrived at the Mirador del Tombo across the river from Cordinanes; we craned our necks up across the valley and traced the faint line of our descent route from yesterday afternoon. From here it looked incredibly steep and made the North Ridge of Tryfan look remarkably easy angled. From the Mirador the path wanders along between the road and the river until finally you have no choice but to use the road. Just off the road is the Chorco de los Lobos near to a couple of settlements that was used by the valleys farmers to catch wolves, presumably to eradicate them. Whilst on the road to Cain we were passed by a bus (no doubt following it's ill informed Sat Nav).

At Cain we stopped for a cafe con leche and the now obligatory piece of tortilla before heading off down the gorge. The first kilometre or so of the path is carved out of the rock, and it also happened to be the busiest. Partly due to to those walking it’s full length are getting into their stride, the narrowness of the walkway along this point but mostly due to the day trippers that walk in huge groups 500m up the gorge from their coaches, take a few snaps and then walk back, again in huge groups.

The gorge is seven miles long and as you head north it opens up, drops in altitude until it starts climbing up to it’s highest point before dropping steeply down into Poncebos. The path was easy going with places to stop to admire the views and as we progressed we were accompanied by the occasional rumble of thunder and shower. None of this was a hassle as there were places to stop and stand out of the short downpours.

We put waterproofs on once but overheated in no time, so we just waited the showers out. It hadn’t taken me long to realise that the ideal piece of kit for this weather was an umbrella. On the last haul up to Los Collaus the skies opened and we were soaked in minutes.

What timing! There we were crossing the highest, pointiest bit of the gorge at what was probably it’s widest point, naturally I was very worried about a lightning strike, we wasted no time scurrying down to Poncebos.

Despite the drenching it had been an enjoyable day with about thirteen or so miles covered with over 500m or so of ascent/descent thrown in. So we celebrated with some cheap local wine and an ensalade ‘Poncebos’ (something of a road accident) and a plate of Patatas Bravas (chips with chili sauce).

picos de europa - potes, fuente de to posada de valdeon

The only time on the trip we set the alarm so we wouldn't miss the bus. Having scouted the bus stop and time the evening before we strolled confidentially through Potes picking up breakfast - a piece of tortilla and a cafe con leche - on route to the supermercado handily sited opposite the terminus. Despite all the advance planning we missed the bus. Penny was convinced that it went through earlier without stopping however I wasn't so sure, what she thought was the bus was going in the wrong direction.

With only two buses a day we weren't keen to hang around until late afternoon, so we strolled back down the main drag to the taxi rank and employed the services of Jose Angel and his glass roofed Merc, which he took great pleasure in rolling back so that we could see the mountains. Despite speaking no English we picked up that that he didn't like the mountains because he suffered from vertigo. And when I saw the cable car in Fuente De I had to agree with him!

Outside the cafe we sorted our gear and filled the platys from the near by spring. A rough plan had been formulated the evening before and we were going to climb up to Tomos de Liordes crossing Vega de Liordes and find a bivi spot the other side of Sedo de la Padiema most likely near Llagu Bajero for water as there appeared to be a few flatish spots close to the lake.

We wasted no time getting stuck into the ascent a steep zig zag up to a pass in the mountains, the Trail Blaze poles eased the climb. At the pass the path levelled out and we entered a wide alpine meadow ringed with sharp pointy limestone peaks. There were still traces of snow at the top of the pass and on the higher peaks. Mid way along the meadow we stopped to eat a late lunch and to top up our water supply from a spring - the sun had been beating down relentlessly and I'd already drunk the two litres that I left the town with. From the meadow we followed a faint track westwards weaving in and around boulders, patches of snow, and on one occasion a small herd of cows protected by a very large, loud dog.

Early evening we stopped, there was no sign of the lake that we were going to bivi next two, so I whipped out the Geko and switched it on and got a map reference. Ah! I said, If I'm not mistaken the lake is over that ridge! Climbing up we passed a flat tussocky spot that was to become our bivi site for the night. Edging over the ridge the lake came into view, I dumped my rucksack got out the platys and descended to the lake side. There wasn't any where flat to be had that side of the ridge and that was fine with me. The meadow was studded with boulders that looked like they'd fallen from the massive head wall on the north side of the lake so there was some risk hunkering down there.


With our mats out we ate supper watched by curious but nervous Iberian chamois, as the sun set the limestone peaks around caught the last rays turning a pinkish tinge. The air temperature dropped as the sun lost it's fight with the horizon and we settled into our bivibag clad sleeping bags, and we soon drifted off to sleep as the stars began to appear in the sky.



We woke to glorious sunshine and after a brew and breakfast we descended a scree covered gully zig zagging our way down carefully to Vega de Asotin, a high alpine meadow filled valley at 4,000ft.


Crossing the valley we began a torturous descent involving a good number of grade one scramble moves - a highly entertaining finish to our mountain crossing and giving a surprising added value to our chosen route. Although Penny had a lot of climbing experience under her climbing harness she hadn't had much of scrambling with a rucksack on. There were a few expletives and complaints of having short legs but otherwise she descended in decent style. And more importantly without mishap.


For me I enjoyed the switch in focus from putting one foot in front of the other to using my limbs in co-ordination. At Cordinanes we headed down the road next to the Rio Cares to Posada de Valdeon where we spent the night.

picos de europa – day one

The ferry journey to Santander was uneventful. We tried to avoid the entertainment for as long as we could but failing light and the fact that once you’ve done a couple of laps of the ship there isn’t any where else you can go, we retired to the piano bar for a bottle of overpriced Bordeaux and catch the pianist doodling tunes in a tux on a white grand.

We arrived in Santander in a mizzling drizzle, not a good start and once we found the bus station and checked the time the bus left for Potes we went walkabout. Typically Spanish, the place was closed from two until five, which given that we wandered off the boat at one and the bus was at five, we had several hours to kill and nothing to kill them with. At least the bus station had a cafe.

Arriving at Potes we booked into the aptly named Hostal Picos de Europa dropped off the rucksacks and wandered around the town looking for supper.

Two things I’ve learnt (and it seems I keep forgetting and having to relearn them) is that don’t go to supermarket hungry and don’t wander round a foreign town is the same state. Passing a restaurant where a woman was tucking into a huge salad with a side of tortilla it seemed the ideal solution for our needs, sadly the food when it turned up was not as we thought we’d imagined it. I’ve never ever seem fake shrimp and crab before and don’t really want to again. Needless to state I hoiked the offending items off my plate. Penny, blessed with a sense of adventure that may lead to her insides undoing, ate some of them. They sort of tasted fishy but had the texture of overcooked pasta was how she described them. The cheap local wine was very drinkable however.

On the run up to the trip food had been a major worry for me and this didn’t bode well. We found a supermercado that was going to prove itself useful the following day and offered me some hope for the days ahead.