National Parks
Picos de Europa National Park
By h.b. - Aug 29, 2007 - 10:43 AM
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The Picos de Europa is one of the largest of Spain’s National Parks, extending for 64,660 hectares across three provinces: Asturias, León and Cantabria.
Declared as a national park in 1995, its origins date back to 1918, when the western part was declared as the Montaña de Covadonga National Park, the first natural space in Spain to receive the classification.
The Park has additional protection as a Biosphere Reserve, from 2003.
The spectacular landscape of this limestone range was formed over a period of 300 million years, with immense slopes reaching up to above 2,500 metres, and deep gorges and valleys forged out of the craggy mountains with the force of water and glacial erosion.
This impressive natural space houses a huge network of underground caves, amongst them some of the deepest caves in Europe.
The range lies just 20 kms inland from the Cantabrian coast, and is divided into three separate massifs: el Cornión in the west, separated from the central massif of los Urrieles by the 1.5km deep Cares gorge, and Andara in the east.
The highest peak is in the Central Massif: Torre de Cerredo, at 2,648 m, but probably the most famous is the Naranja de Bulnes - Picu Urriellu in the Asturian language: referred to by some as the ‘Matterhorn of Spain,’ this almost sheer block of limestone rises up like a massive thumb to reach a height of 2,519 m.
The high peaks are characterised by a lunar-type landscape practically devoid of vegetation and little surface water.
Further down, below 1,600 m, there is a rich diversity of woodland, from forests of beech and holm oak, giving way to ash and lime and Pyrenean oak. More than 40 species of orchid are found in the lush grasslands.
The fauna found in the Picos de Europa is also richly diverse: more than 160 species of birds, including golden eagles, Bonelli’s eagle and three species of vulture. Mammals include the rebeco – a native sub-species of chamois - red and roe deer, wild boar, wildcat and Iberian wolves.
The National Park is also home to a species now extremely rare in Spain and under serious threat of extinction: the ‘oso pardo, or ‘European brown bear.’ Only an estimated 130 are thought to be alive in Spain today.
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