Teito in the Somiedo Natural Park
In the Somiedo Natural Park –located in a territory where Asturias almost begins to embrace the plains of Castilla y León– mountains of 2,200 meters shelter ancient stories that have crystallized in lakes of dark waters, afraid that someone could see through them and steal the secret of their eternal beauty and youth.
Around those lakes, hikers, cows and bears try to enjoy, in shifts perfectly organized by Mother Nature, of those little pleasures of life that define happiness for each one of them.
Asturian brown bears seek food, loneliness and recreation in Somiedo, but not always, only when the heat brings them out of hibernation. The cows, with that empty look that seems to show them oblivious to almost everything, graze wherever there is grass, a good that is not at all scarce in Somiedo.
Meanwhile, the only biped in the equation is glad that his cell phone doesn't have coverage while he's drilling. some paths that reveal, after each bend, an even more wonderful view than the one contemplated in the previous one. He possibly, he will think about taking a picture. Complete detoxification takes longer.
SOMIEDO, LAND OF BRAÑAS, TEITOS AND VAQUEIROS
There are other men who reluctantly have a mobile, maybe just to check the weather forecast or make a quick phone call home. They are seasoned shepherds who stoically endure the questions of hikers or they quietly agree with a little nod of their heads to have their photos taken with some of their cows.
It is his condescending compensation for the fact that their bovids invade the access roads to the park, causing an occasional scare and many funny situations.
Those shepherds are the heirs of the vaqueiros de alzada, a cultural group that spread throughout western Asturias and was dedicated to raising cattle, traveling to the mountains every summer. They maintained their particular customs and folklore between the 16th and 20th centuries.
Trails in Somiedo
Today, the few that remain are an Asturian cultural treasure and only obey the laws dictated by nature, roaming freely through the brañas, those highlands covered by an endless green mantle that represents Nirvana for the Asturian cows, happy to taste those late summer pastures.
Here and there, they appear scattered the teitos, the wooden or stone buildings with black broom roofs (also called hiniesta), or other bushes available in the area, and straw. In reality, the word teito was applied only to the green roof of the hut, but it ended up naming the entire complex.
The solitary cowboys pass by them and imagine a time when there were dozens of them who used them. They remain the guardians of a tradition long forgotten by most.
Wild nature in Somiedo
HIKING BETWEEN LAKES
Although cowboys may think that things have changed a lot, those who visit Somiedo for the first time usually have a totally opposite feeling.
And it is that the hiking routes that explore one of the most beautiful natural parks in Spain take the traveler into bucolic landscapes, with imposing mountains –whose slopes are covered with bushes and grass in their highest part, and leafy forests of beech and oak trees in the lower areas– and mysterious and precious glacial lakes.
Thus, Pico Cornón, Peña Orniz or Picos Albos are silent witnesses of human admiration. Well, except in the peak moments of the summer tourist season, anyone who walks these paths will feel that they are alone with nature.
Somiedo Natural Park, Asturias
Although there are more than a dozen signposted routes in Somiedo –which can be traveled on foot, on horseback or by bicycle– the majority opt for two: the Saliencia Lakes Route and the Lake Valley Route.
The first offers, in turn, different alternatives, because after descending the small slope that leads from the Alto de la Farrapona car park to the viewpoint of the Cueva lake, The old main mining road – wider and simpler – is just one of the many paths that go into the area.
The circular route is the simplest and offers views of the aforementioned Cueva lake. -whose waters show different colors due to the residues of the old mining exploitation that took place there-, to then pass next to Cerveriz and Almagrera lakes (which does not always contain water), before descending to the great lake Calabazosa, the deepest of those in Saliencia and where, on hot summer days, you feel like taking a refreshing swim.
Then the road leads back to the col of the Farrapona , leaving the Cueva lake on the left.
Saliencia Lakes
Nevertheless, The largest lake in Somiedo –and in the entire Cantabrian Mountains– is discovered after taking an extension of the circular route at the height of Lake Cerveriz.
After walking through pastures and teitos, you access the valley lake. Its two kilometers of perimeter are contained in a glacial cirque, sheltered by peaks over 2,000 meters high that each winter add their white snows to a landscape image that is difficult to improve.
Although the routes carved into the earth show the beauty of Somiedo, there is no better way to find the most intimate and solitary places in the natural park than leaving those paths to walk through its vast virgin territory.
A) Yes, the traveler will find himself face to face with lonely places that will make him forget the stress, the noise, the worries... And even who it was. Baring the soul before the warm embrace of Mother Nature.
Enjoy the beauty of simple things in the Somiedo Natural Park
THE BROWN BEARS AND SOMIEDO FAUNA
It is these virgin territories, far from the paths so loved by humans, that inhabit the brown bears of Somiedo. Although they prefer to hide from men in beech, birch and oak forests, bears sometimes venture out of their safety zone to prowl the lakes in search of the fruits of the Rhamnus alpina, better known as escuernacabras.
Its population, so threatened a few years ago, is beginning to recover and they have become one of the symbols of Somiedo, a place where people continue to live from livestock, but tourism, always within a totally sustainable and environmentally friendly framework, is beginning to have its weight.
The brown bears are accompanied, among many other species, by wolves, deer, capercaillies, martens, dormice, genets, wild boar, moles, wild cats and deer. All of them benefit from the scarce human presence and the almost non-existent deterioration of the vegetal cover that Somiedo has experienced.
And it is that in the Somiedo Natural Park the scars left by the passage of time and the unstoppable work of wear and tear in which humanity puts so much effort, seem much more tenuous than in most of Spain. It depends on us that this continues to be the case, and that both animals and future generations continue to consider it an earthly paradise in which to dream and get lost.
Somiedo: the brown bear as an excuse