Asturias trip report - 4

With a weather forecast for a clear blue sky, sunshine and temperatures in the low 20's C, a walk was needed with scenery, shade, fresh water and some interest. Paloma suggested the walk from Orllé to Majada de Melordaña, wildflowers, woodland, a gorge to scramble up and historic summer dwellings. Photographic ambitions were restricted to a narrative of documenting some of the sights along the way. Orllé is a small town nucleated on south facing slopes, on the north side of its namesake river and immediately surrounded by small scale fields (hay meadows?) and woodland. The track to Majada de Melordaña essentially follows the course of the Rio Orlé upstream, passing hay meadows and then into open countryside.

Wild cherry in flower

Along one section, the track cut into the hill slope revealing exposures of angular fragments of dolomite cemented by flowstone. Extrapolating the extent of the exposures and their thickness suggested extensive period(s) of periglacial weathering/slope processes and an insight into the geomorphology of the Rio Orlé valley.

The walk exits open grazing land and enters a wooded gorge where the river had cut down through steeply inclined bedrock and evidence for historic rock falls.

Steeply inclined bedrock and flowering Spanish heath (Erica Australis)

The track through rock fall debris

Many of the wildflowers and flora growing alongside the track through the woodland, were familiar from UK woodlands designated as ancient.

Wood Anemone (Anemone nemorosa)

Outsize hazel coppice stools

Great Wood Rush (Luzula sylvatica)

Oxlip (Primula elatior)

At the hamlet of Conforcos, I was impressed with an historic hunting lodge, now derelict, sited in a particularly photogenic location and I think there would be some potential with the scene in autumn with better lighting.

Next stop was the Foz Melordaña where the Rio Secu emerges from a gorge into a mass of boulders and woodland with outsize beech coppice stools. The opportunity was taken to cool our feet in the water of the Rio Secu, before heading on up through the gorge.

Coppiced beech ~ Foz Melordaña

The scrambling and traverse through the gorge presented no difficulty in dry weather and exiting the gorge we arrived at the Majada de Melordaña.

Majada de Melordaña

The Majada de Melordaña is the site of derelict cabañas (summer huts) once used by pastoral herdsman/shepherds looking after grazing livestock on the Braña. The cabañas were very similar in size to the numerous ruined hafods (Wales) and sheilings (Scotland) that I had encountered in the uplands of the UK.

Majada de Melordaña

Some of the roof slabs/tiles displayed ripple marks and most of the building stone to my eyes appeared to have originated from an outcrop on a hill side a few hundred metres to the west above a grove of Holly trees.

Ash trees grew in close proximity to some cabañas and a likely source of fire wood that produces a useful heat even when 'green'. I would have liked to investigate the yew trees growing on the limestone outcrops, the binoculars indicated some yews to be of some girth, sadly the heat and fatigue sapped my curiosity.

The return journey to Orllé bypassed the gorge through a beech woodland where spurge  (Euphorbia spp) was conspicuous in an area where trees had been cleared in the widening of a new track .

It had been an interesting excursion and the final one of our stay in Redes Natural Park.

Asturias trip report - 3

The previous evening after dinner, Sergio had enquired if we would like to accompany him on a Rebeco survey, essentially a drive to a high mountain pass and then a short ascent to view Rebeco. Sergio's work as a mountain biologist authorised him to drive along the restricted mountain tracks to conduct survey work. Realising there would be no slog uphill in the night, Nic immediately said yes and how could I turn down an opportunity to be taxied to a high point for the quality light of dawn.  Generally the topography required a minimum ascent of 600 - 1,000m from the parked car and a few hours of night navigation to reach a high point for dawn. In any case the weather forecast had taken a turn for the worse, with weather charts indicating high pressure and the depressing symbol of sun and clear blue sky for the next 4 days, so dawn twilight would be a welcome opportunity.

Following an interesting drive up a rugged mountain track the destination was an area of pasturage on a col covered by a hard ground frost, with a dramatic vista of surrounding peaks and valleys. Normally a frost should equate to clear air and excellent visibility, instead there was a distinct haze, deep sigh and another reason to loathe high pressure weather systems.  I complimented Sergio on the location and views, then explained that I'd take the opportunity to look around and with indecent haste departed, leaving Nic to keep Sergio company in finding Rebeco.

The views encompassed some areas of compelling structural geology, sadly the azimuth of sunrise and haze mitigated against that image. In my view what defines twilight landscape photography from the hills with clear skies is alpenglow and the haze would accentuate that, with pastel colours of purple, pink, red contrasting with cool blues transitioning to a golden colour developing towards sunrise, then the warm golden light and then harsh lighting.  The image narrative I wanted was to convey the dawn colour, geology and mosaic of habitats.

The col was a mosaic of grass, holly bushes, gorse, bracken, brambles, broom and daffodils growing between 1,200 - 1,300m asl. The vegetation assemblages hinted at reduced levels of grazing/trampling and with a continued reduction in grazing would given time witness a succession of scrub communities then secondary woodland.

The numbers of holly bushes must be close to satisfying the requirements of woodland categorisation and showed no visible browse lines, the larger holly bushes appeared to be old coppice stools some with younger sucker shoots and possibly an historic resource of animal fodder during winter. 

The high elevation of closed canopy woodland prompted thoughts of autumn photographic potential.

I did take an image of the geology outcrops tracing the outlines of folding that hint at the structural complexity of this area of the Cordillera Cantábrica. Having since read some geology research papers it is indeed the case with thrusts, folds and faulting associated with thin skinned deformation in the Variscan Orogeny and later reactivation in the Alpine Orogeny.

Geology structure on a landscape scale

Sergio, had located Rebeco and a look through his spotting scope at a grazing Rebeco was a revelation, as I couldn't see anything looking through binoculars at the same distant hill side. The ride back down emphasised the ruggedness and exposure of the mountain track. After breakfast, we went to the nearest village store and bought a couple of bottles of wine as a thank you to Sergio. A siesta was taken and suitably refreshed an excursion made to specifically scouting out a valley for its autumn potential.

Angel's Tears

It was an enjoyable and useful walk, identifying some areas of autumnal potential. 

Asturias trip report - 2

Next up on the itinerary was a stay at the Hotel rural Los Riegos in the Redes Natural Park run by two biologists : Sergio and Paloma. Their knowledge, guidance and insight was invaluable, which meant we undertook some excursions that otherwise would have been overlooked and consequently we extended our stay from 2 to 4 nights. After unpacking there was time for a late afternoon excursion and enquiring about a suitable walk in old woodland with spring flowers, Paloma recommended one and provided a map.

Veteran beech pollards

The walk was along old trackways in places lined with beech pollards, through predominantly beech woodland. The size of some pollards and coppice stools indicated a great age to the trees and a long history of woodland management. Natural regeneration was evident with a mix of age ranges of saplings to young trees and in places dead wood was being conserved as a habitat resource, the woodlands appeared to be managed for conservation too.

Beech woodland

The trees provided a habitat for communities of bryophytes and lichens, that might interest a specialist.

Some of the woodland flora was familiar from the UK.

Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella)

Whilst other flora was not so familiar and Dog's tooth violets once again put in an appearance.

Hollow-root is classified as a neophyte in the UK.

Hollow-root (Corydalis cava )

It was a surprise to stumble upon St Patrick's Cabbage in a beech wood ~1,200 metres asl, the first indication was a group of emerging plants and then an actual specimen ready to flower. St Patrick's cabbage is part of the Lusitanian flora an enigma in plant distribution.

St Patrick's cabbage (Saxifraga spathularis)

St Patrick's cabbage (Saxifraga spathularis)

It was a good interesting walk and did not require a huge amount of imagination to see the potential for Autumnal colour.

The next day a walk was selected for its geology, geomorphology and scenery, starting from Caleao to the Desfiladero de los Arrudos.  Surrounding Caleao are a patchwork of small fields that appeared to be farmed in a traditional manner, some fields were being manured.

A landscape of traditional small scale farming

A trackway of some age.

View over farmland to the outer gorge cutting through limestone/dolostone lithologies

Downstream of the gorge is an extensive alluvial fan of boulders, many imbricated and deposited when the stream capacity of the palaeo-Arrudos dropped exiting the gorge. The size of the boulders indicate an event(s) where extremely high volumes of water flowed through the gorge. The boulder deposit had subsequently been colonised by woodland with many trees pollarded or coppiced.

One interesting flower was Angel's Tears, a native daffodil whose distribution seemed to be intimately associated with the underlying bedrock geology.

Angel's Tears (Narcissus triandrus)

In the main gorge there was compelling evidence for comparatively recent rock fall debris free from mosses, overlaying older rock fall debris colonised by mosses.

Rock fall debris chronology

The main gorge is formed from the Arrudos cutting down through steeply inclined beds of sedimentary rocks, predominantly almost pure quartz sandstones with occasional beds of shale. The depth of the gorge and the contrast between the gorge sides with ragged outcropping beds on one side and 'smooth' bedding plane surfaces on the other, is dramatic and visually impressive.

Desfiladero de los Arrudos - highly inclined bedding planes

Desfiladero de los Arduous

Outcrop of intensely fractured quartz sandstone - possibly associated with a fault/thrust plane?

The excursion up into the Desfiladero de los Arduous was good and it was another location that would be best visited in the Autumn.

Asturias trip report - Part 1

The Cordillera Cantábrica had been on my 'to visit' list for a while, it is an area that has cropped up in a varied range of reading and research literature from the Variscan Orogeny, Lusitanian flora, Atlantic woodlands, karst geomorphology, Ice age refugia, montane environments ... The European Environment Agency website illustrates perfectly the conservation value of the Cordillera Cantábrica.

http://natura2000.eea.europa.eu/#

At the start of 2017 Nic had a weeks holiday to use up by mid April, could speak some Spanish and found the prospect of visiting Spain far more appealing than Scotland in the first week of April, so flights to Bilbao and a rental car were booked, accommodation would be sorted out closer to the date. During the meanwhile I would cobble together an itinerary, which was easier said than done given the vagaries of spring and the size of the area.



The European Environment Agency website and Google identified a few areas within Asturias that provided a range of potentially weather proof itineraries and based on a long range weather forecast a week before flying, some accommodation was booked for the first 4 nights.

Dog's tooth violet (Erythronium dens-canis)

Hotel Posada del Valle was the first destination and very pleasant too. Arriving in the evening provided the opportunity to clarify the local rules and regulations on access etc. Given a weather forecast of clear blue skies, the proprietors recommended the walk to Picu Pienzu on the Sierra del Sueve for its views and the opportunity to explore a Yew wood on the distal slope. I'll be honest and state that 'fine walking weather' doesn't score highly on photographic inspiration for landscapes. Nonetheless Picu Pienzu offered the prospect of surveying this area of Asturias. The following day saw the ascent start from the Mirador del Fito car park.

Pine trees and the main ridge of the Sierra del Sueve massif

Lichen community on a montane Ash tree ~ 900m ASL

There was a surprising amount of gorse cover even over limestone.

A isolated veteran Holly tree ~ 1,000 m ASL

The slog/walk up had been virtually windless, until nearing the summit when a cooling wind put in a welcome appearance. The views from the summit were very good and on the lee side of the summit some time was taken for an extended viewing of the vista. The strengthening wind negated any ambition to visit the Yew wood, although it did appear to be clearing away the haze, sadly cloud blanketing the western horizon would negate any sunset light.

Geology and topography of the Cordillera Cantábrica

View of the unvisited Yew wood

Heavily grazed summit area 

There are some outcrops at lower elevations of a more competent rock possibly a quartz rich turbidite or volcanic tuff origin, that had out weathered from the surrounding bedrock and hinted at a long exposure time.

Whilst the Sierra del Sueve massif is impressive the distant Picos de Europa range dominate the views to the East and South East.

View to the Picos de Europa

The excursion highlighted the potential of the Sierra del Sueve for landscape photography in better light and weather conditions. The Picu Pienzu summit provided a fine viewpoint and highlighted some other hills that would also be worth exploring for their landscape photography potential. However the next day we were headed south to the Redes Natural Park for the next stage of the trip.