Hiking in Parque Natural de Somiedo, Valle de Lago

Parque Natural de Somiedo may not win the same plaudits as the Parque Nacional de los Picos de Europa, but it is a stunningly beautiful region that has the added advantage of having fewer visitors than its more illustrious neighbour. Somiedo’s four major valleys – Saliencia, Valle, Somiedo and Pigüeña – are overshadowed by towering mountain peaks. At 2,194 metres, El Cornón is the highest in the park.

Somiedo is also known for its lakes. The Saliencia Lakes (Cerveriz, Calabazosa and La Cueva) sit at and altitude of 1,600 metres, and Lago del Valle (the largest in Asturias) comes in at 1,580 metres above sea level. Amongst the peaks and lakes are high altitude pastures – known as brañas – where the regional Asturiana de la Montaña cattle breed graze. They represent a link to ancient traditions of livestock herding.

The mountain pastures are breathtaking places. I often found myself alone in these vast areas with only the chimes of the bells that hang around the necks of some cows for company. While tourism is growing in importance, livestock farming remains the main economic activity in the park, and it is one that links back to the first pastoralists who inhabited this region thousands of years ago.

One of the unique features of the brañas landscape are the stone shepherd huts with thatched roofs where shepherds would stay during the summer months. This type of hut dates to the Middle ages, but their origins date back millennia to pre-historic seasonal grazing known as transhumance. The shepherds stayed close to their herds and would often sleep with them in the branas to protect them from predators.

That is the other glorious thing about Somiedo, it is home to a range of wildlife, the most iconic of which is the Cantabrian brown bear. Still endangered but slowly recovering thanks to a programme to protect them, there are around 250 bears in the park. While fearsome, bears aren’t the park’s apex predator. That title goes to the Iberian wolf, which rubs shoulders with badgers, red deer, foxes, wild cats, and chamois.

As well as a range of reptiles and amphibians, Somiedo also sustains an abundance of birdlife. Top of the bird food chain are Golden Eagles. Fitting then that Somiedo was the first Asturian region to be declared a Natural Park in 1988, and was designated as an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2000. The park has a few small villages where the tiny year-round population lives, we based ourselves in Valle de Lago.

This tiny hamlet sits at 1,230 metres in altitude amidst limestone peaks and occupies an elevated spot above the River Valle in the valley floor. We stayed in the brilliant Hotel Rural Valle de Lago, which is just about the most welcoming place on earth after a long day hiking in the surrounding mountains. The peace and quiet of the village, especially in the early morning and evening (star gazing anyone?), was wondrous.

The weather was exceptional and gave us three sunny days of exploring. Our first walk, one of the most popular in the park, was to Lago del Valle at the head of the valley. The small lake was damned at the start of the 20th century for electricity generation at the La Malva hydroelectric plant, which we passed on the way to the village. Still working today, it provides power to more than 10.000 homes.

It’s hard to describe the walks in Somiedo without an excessive use of superlatives, it’s so beautiful. The route to Lago del Valle is no exception. Leaving the village behind there is an easy to walk farming track that leads all the way through the valley before steeply ascending to the lake in the final couple of kilometres. The further up the trail we went, the more extraordinary the views down the valley became.

At the lake there were a couple of huts overlooking the calm waters below. We sat here and had lunch while taking in the views down the valley. The lake sits in an amphitheatre of mountains, the tallest of which is over 2,000 metres. It’s an wonderfully beautiful spot. The route back was on rougher trails but the descent to the village provided even more spectacular views. A bottle of Asturias cider was just reward for our efforts.