The cows blocking the narrow mountain path distracted me from the other, more urgent, thing that was troubling about my situation. When the movement finally caught my eye, my first thought was, ‘that’s a big dog, a very big dog’. This was swiftly followed by ‘that’s a very big dog with a collar made of rusty nails’. As my heart rate ticked upwards, my final thought was, ‘that very big dog is heading towards me’.
I told myself to remain calm, don’t make eye contact, but there was no getting around the fact that a massive hound with a collar of rusty nails was slowly, deliberately walking towards me. Then it was on me, but instead of ripping me apart it rubbed against my leg looking for some affection. I patted it and quietly muttered “buen perro”. I need not have worried, my new friend was a gentle giant.
I inquired if he would help me with the vaca situation, but my Spanish clearly wasn’t understood. After what I assumed was an acceptable amount of petting, I set off through the cows. Luckily Asturias cows are pretty docile, but again they had distracted me from a second massive hound that was heading towards me. A considerable amount of petting later, I figured it was safe to continue on my way to the Lagos de Saliencia.
Gentle giants they may be, but Spanish Mastiffs are the fearsome guardians of these mountains. Here to protect the cattle from the numerous Iberian wolf packs that call the Parque Natural de Somiedo home. It explained the rusty nail collar, wolves will go for the throat. The dogs spend weeks amongst the cattle, and farmers come daily to feed them. Perhaps they thought I had food, which is better than thinking I was food.
I was musing on this as I clambered up a steep, rocky path towards a ridge that was the border between the Valle de Lago and Valle de Saliencia. The mastiffs were there to protect against wolves, which meant there were wolves in the area. Wolves are grey, the mountain pass I was walking over was all grey limestone. A wolf pack could easily blend into this landscape. I was definitely going to be eaten by wolves.
Solitude is both a curse and a blessing it turns out, and for the first few hours of this walk I didn’t see another soul. Not until I reached the three Lagos de Saliencia, where there were quite a lot of people. Access from Valle de Saliencia is much easier, there’s a car park a kilometre away. The route from Valle de Lago was through isolated landscapes far from any road.
To reach the gorgeous Lagos de Saliencia meant climbing out of one valley into the next, but between them are two sweeping, bowl-like alpine meadows. In the first, I stood near its middle and just listened: a gentle breeze, birdsong and the chime of cowbells. The sense of ‘aloneness’ was slightly unsettling. The meadow stands at 1,700 metres altitude and is ringed by much higher limestone peaks. It’s spectacular.
The route through the second meadow was no less spectacular and also ended with a climb to a ridge. This one offered sweeping views and my first glimpse of Lago Cerveriz with a backdrop of the 2,109 metre high Pico Albo Oriental. I dropped down towards the lakeshore and spotted the first people I’d seen since breakfast. I skirted around the edge of the lake and took a rocky path over a ridge towards Lago Calabazosa.
The largest of the three main lakes, Lago Calabazosa sits in a deep bowl of mountains, their slopes sliding straight into the water. The path descended to the edge of the lake and skirted around the shoreline. At around 60 metres in depth, this is the deepest lake in Asturias. The route then goes steeply up to a saddle between Lago Calabazosa and Lago de la Cueva. The views back over Calabazosa were spellbinding.
Walking around the mountainside the landscape suddenly changed as Lago de la Cueva came into view. Deep red scars in the hillside are the result of almost two centuries of iron ore mining. This is reflected in the dark waters of the lake, which is tainted by the iron oxides that wash into it. At its peak, the Santa Rita Mine employed 300 people and produced around 70,000 tonnes of iron ore each year.
From my elevated position I could see the old mining track that cuts through the hills. I would lose a lot of altitude before climbing back up along this red dirt road. I reached the other side of Lago de la Cueva where there is a viewpoint down the long sweep of Valle de Saliencia. From here I climbed over the saddle between Lago de la Cueva and Lago Cerveriz, and retraced my steps to Valle de Lago.
This time I did meet a few people, although still remarkably few considering the beauty of this area. I was looking forward to meeting my canine friends again, but when I reached the area where we’d had out early morning encounter they were nowhere to be seen. Reassuringly, cows were still blocking the path. Back in Valle de Lago, a bottle of cider and local speciality of cachopo were just reward for a day in the mountains.
