Picos de Europa 2016


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Picos de Europa

Day 4 - Monday 29th August 2016

The Cares Gorge

Distance Time Elevation in meters

Km Elapsed
Hrs-Mins Moving
Hrs-Mins Gain Loss Min Max

18.0 4H45 400 400

Location of the walk

The Cares Gorge is 12 km long and separates the Western and Central ranges in the Picos, running from Poncebos in the north to Cain in the south. You would normally expect it to be a simple walk to go from one end to the other, but transport logistics make it difficult. There is no bus service to pick you up and it would be expensive to have a taxi come to collect you. We then had the idea of leaving a car at Poncebos to be available when we arrived there, but Potes to Poncebos is 56 km and takes 1 hour 20 minutes to drive; a return trip to leave a car at Poncebos would take almost 3 hours, and on top of that you would have to drive from Potes to Cain for the start of the walk, itself 65 km and 1 hour 45 minutes of driving.

The Cain end of the Cares Gorge is the more spectacular, so bearing in mind the logistics it is easy to see why most people start from Cain and return to the same point. To walk the whole gorge Cain - Poncebos and then back to Cain would be 24 km, which is doable, but actually there is not much point in going beyond the high point at 535 m at Los Callaos. After Los Collaos the gorge widens and is less interesting, plus the fact that if you do descend to Poncebos you have got to climb back up for the return journey to Cain. Los Callaos is a good point for a break and lunch.