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ContactPoncebos is barely a place — a handful of buildings, a car park, and a trailhead — but it is the start of the Ruta del Cares, a path blasted into the side of a limestone gorge that is the single best day walk in northern Spain. Twelve kilometres of it run to the village of Caín in León, cut into the rock face with the river somewhere below and nothing to stop a fall but the path itself.
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Poncebos is the trailhead village at the mouth of the Cares Gorge in the Picos de Europa, the start of the Ruta del Cares and the Bulnes funicular.
The Ruta del Cares runs about twelve kilometres from Poncebos to Caín, roughly three hours each way at a steady pace, and it was originally cut as a maintenance channel for a hydroelectric scheme rather than as a walking route. That history explains its character: the path is not a trail over terrain but a ledge carved into the cliff, sometimes in a tunnel, sometimes following an open channel, with the Cares river running turquoise and very cold through the bottom of the gorge. There are a couple of exposed stretches with cables and chains fixed to the rock, and while the route is never technically difficult it is genuinely not one for anyone uneasy with heights.
Turquoise water running beneath a limestone cliff wall in the Cares Gorge
Doing the full there-and-back is six hours, which is a long day but the standard approach; the alternative is to walk two hours in and turn around, which gets you the best of the gorge without the commitment. From Poncebos, a funicular also climbs steeply to Bulnes, a village with no road access that was effectively cut off until the tunnel and railway were built, and which now has a handful of bars and a lot of cats. We based ourselves here for two nights in July, walking the gorge one day and taking the funicular the next, and July was hot enough that we were on the path by 7am — the gorge funnels heat and there is very little shade after mid-morning.
June and September. July and August are hot inside the gorge and busy, and the path can be closed by snow or rockfall in winter and early spring.
At Poncebos itself if you can get a room; otherwise Arenas de Cabrales, a short drive away, has more choice and a supermarket.
Order cachopo — a large breaded veal cutlet stuffed with ham and cheese — or a plate of Cabrales blue cheese, both Asturian staples, at one of the restaurants at the trailhead.
Start before 8am. The gorge holds heat, there is almost no shade, and the path is narrow enough that a busy afternoon means walking in single file behind other groups.
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