Why Not Go?: Hiking the Cares Gorge - One of the most beautiful walks In Spain

Trail is etched out of the rock - Bottom left corner but hard to see!

The Cares Gorge hike, or the Ruta del Cares, is pretty famous in the Picos region. The Cares route is often called The Divine Gorge and runs over 12 kilometers between the towns of Poncebos and Caín. It's so popular it gets a quarter of a million hikers in an average year. Again, we have been lucky in choosing the end of September because we didn't meet more than a few dozen people and a couple of goats on the trail.

The Cares canal is a water channel that was built mostly through the mountain between 1916 and 1921. Water rushing down the channel powers a hydroelectric power station at Poncebos. I couldn't find any information about how it was dug, how they managed just the right angle of descent while digging through solid rock, how they were able to breathe during the digging, and where they ate lunch. A couple decades later they went back and carved a foot path through the limestone as a maintenance trail. That footpath is the trail we hiked. The whole thing is one of those feats of human willpower by incredibly strong and durable men.

Stone supports the trail top left

The trail itself runs parallel to the channel for most of the way and has been upgraded with additional tunnels over the last 60 years. But the trail, too, is a feat of amazing proportions. When you're walking over a stone-supported path looking straight down at a river almost a mile below, it's hard not to wonder where the guys building that crossing stood during the construction. Mind boggling, and it's six to seven miles long! Their heroic work (in my estimation) gave us all the give of this dramatic canyon few would otherwise ever get to see.

We started our walk from the car park at Poncebos near the trailhead. In a very short distance, the surrounding grey limestone peaks rise up all around, and the trail heads UP for the hardest section of the hike. We're talking up, often on skree or loose rock, for about an hour. The only relief is the sound of the cascading river below which was to be with us the whole route. The walking on skree or loose rock thing continued off and on for most of the day, more on than off. In this instance, with a sheer drop off on the side of this four foot wide trail, it's interesting to note the word skree comes from the Old English word scrīthan, which means to slip!

After the front end, we were greeted with a vision of the barely visible trail snaking off into the distance into the narrow gorge. The literature says it's a flat trail, but they are lying, or maybe in their twenties. There were lots of ups and downs along the way and toward the Cain end it did level out . . . some.

The "walk" had the bones of a few old buildings left over from construction, some of the stone and red tile roofed shepherd houses tucked into the steep walls, and begging goats who've been hustling on the trail since the workers were there in the 1900s. We also passed through the occasional moist micro-climate as we walked through water running across the few shaded corners of the trail. In the photo on the right Gwen is using switchbacks to head down. You can just see the line marking the trail over her right shoulder. She's smiling cuz we're just starting.

Toward the Cain end of the trail, things got more interesting. There was a giant stone arch with a few years left in it, and a long series of tunnels, some so dark you couldn't see the puddles you were walking through. In the last few miles there were solidly constructed "ledges" where no path was possible (or had failed - great), and some impressive bridges that gave you a taste of the opposite side of the canyon.

Maybe it was the other Picos hikes we've done, or that we'd had many days with of a lot of walking somewhere everyday. Or maybe it's that I was 71 and Gwen was . . . we're getting older, but at Cain we were both pretty tired, had very sore feet, and we were only half-way done with the experience. We broke out our packed lunch, including some chocolate Max had given us, and at the side of the stream in Cain we soaked our feet as we ate. Wonderful.

Bolstered by the food, chocolate, cooled feet and dry socks, we headed back out of the gorge. It was long trip out, of course, but easier somehow knowing what we were facing. We did our slow mountain walking in some places, sat a few times to rest, take it all in, and feel lucky to just be there. Three plus hours later we emerged back on the pavement, tired, happy, and proud.

With the walk back to the car we figured we walked between 14 and 15 miles. In honor of the post-hike tradition we'd started on the front end of the trip with Max, Jeremy, and our guides, we stopped just short of our car to have a well-earned, small, and very cold victory beer.

I'll add more photos at the end because the hike deserves more visual explanation. Hard to explain even looking at these pictures now, the mix of feelings as I remember the fatigue, stretching to get the last out of tired legs, the views, sounds of rushing water in a stream bed for a day, the cold foot soak, and how good chocolate and beer can taste at just the right moment.

That evening, after an afternoon nap, we actually collapsed our hiking poles and washed the boots off for packing. The hiking part of the trip is over and we're now looking forward to soft shoes and flat pavement. The next post is our final day in Llanes and the trip to Pamplona

Onward, we're now six or so days from home with a couple of big Spanish city adventures ahead!

Blessings,

Earl and Gwen