Fuente De and the Mountain Pastures of Liordes

Jim Arymar

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After an exhilarating cable-car ride, this very difficult hike takes us high up into the mountains above Fuente Dé. Much scrambling through craggy passes eventually brings us to the idyllic mountain pastures of Liordes. An 1,100-metre descent on a breathtakingly beautiful but very tricky footpath returns us to the cable-car station from where we began. This is a hike for experienced mountain hikers.

The ride up from Fuente Dé to the mountain station is brief but spectacular. From the top we begin with an easy ramble along the only wide track. Very soon we turn off and begin heading west past some ruined buildings, quickly entering the starkly beautiful mountain landscape full of derelict mineshafts from the 1960s and earlier. Soon we are climbing steeply along a very difficult pathway, eventually reaching a pronounced ridge. From here we continue ascending west towards the next crest we can see in the distance.

Once over this ridge we have to find our way down into a rocky valley and clamber our way along it, eventually to find the gap we are looking for to allow us to descend to the idyllic mountain pastureland of Liordes. Now we have a brief easy stage as we follow a clear footpath beneath the mountain cliff we were atop earlier.

This soon brings us to another ridge and the start of the Turnos de Liordes. 1,100 metres below we can see the parador and cable-car buildings of Fuente Dé. Once these Turnos were a track down which the mined copper and zinc ore was moved by cart. Now avalanches have reduced the way to a spiralling footpath, very loose and dangerous in places, which we must carefully negotiate to return to our start point.

Spain - North West Spain - Cantabria - Picos de Europa