The path on which we walk goes up from the southern edge of the town, the slope of La Roñada peak, describing a great arch with hard steep slopes. You pass next to the Los Arrieles winter gardens to then arrive at the panoramic viewpoint of the cantu texu of La Oración (973 m.) (2,4 km, in 1 h), whose history takes us back to remote times. It was the meeting place of the shepherds to exercise their pagan and later Christian rites. Good images of the Casino orography can be seen from this lofty promontory. After the steep slopes, the track clings to the mountain high above the Monastery river ravine, in a clear southerly direction. After skirting the cliffs of texu Los Carrascales, you enter the hanging meadows of Coto Abellar, with huts scattered in the profile of the hillside. The route continues along the track ahead, crossing the high and successive sheepfolds of Raigau, La Cardosa, El Fondil and Bláiz, presenting ourselves shortly after in Andurviu's sheepfold, where cabins and a good spring (1.073 m.) are distributed (5,5 km, in 2 h. and 10 min.).
If we continue along the original path, which from here goes into ZURE zone allowed, the march enters the forest, under which you can make out a precipice cut to a peak over the ravine. Further on, the track crosses it, under the concreted roof of the Llobu argayu, to immediately cross the carved rock of the Crestón tunnel, drilled in the limestone and that saves the knife of the Pintacanales mountain range. At its exit, there is a Canadian pass and a viewpoint, from which new landscape images are contemplated that continue to continue to the Pandu Quemáu fountain and the Brañagallones car park (1.215 m.) (10,6 km, in 3 h and 30 min). We are located in the antojana de La Vega, as it is also called, or Brañagallones, a true oasis that emerged on the southern borders of Caso. The places that surround the structural periphery of this sheepfold constitute an uninterrupted series of natural values that surprises the hiker. It is protected on the eastern flank by the line of peaks of the Osu ridge and the Príes mountains, while, to the south, the Peña del Viento peaks and the ridged calcareous spurs of the Sellar and Los Fornos peaks compress this area.
The profusion of trees in many of its areas, mainly composed of beeches, oaks and holm oaks, gives a touch of class at any time of the year. Water is also a basic element in this fantastic nature, where the song of the Osu is constituted as a sovereign watchtower. The rustic cabins, built of stone walls, are still standing and in full use, in perfect harmony with the environment where they settle. On the promontory of Pandiellu (1.240 m.) Is located the refurbished shelter that was hunters and now mountaineering, managed by FEMPA and equipped with all the services, including a guide, that any mountaineer wants, and which is constituted as a starting point towards the surrounding mountains. It is served by an auto-taxi service.
Book «Networks, step by step»
If you want to know first-hand routes and places like this, we recommend you buy the book «Networks, step by step», written by Ángel Fernández Ortega in which he collects mountain roads and routes that he has traveled through this area for more than 40 years.
