Camera swansong

Four weekends in a row getting out to the country - can't remember when that happened before!
I left the car at Puerto de Braguía, between Selaya and Vega de Pas and headed east along a flat ridge overlooking valleys on either side.
Castro Valnera is the highest mountain in these parts, and looked particularly impressive after a heavy snowfall the day before.


A look back at the first part of the walk, with the snow-capped peaks of Alto Campoo appearing in the distance

To our left lay the Carriedo Valley

The Picos de Sopeña at the end of the ridge, called Llana de Perocapillo, were the day's objective

Castro Valnera soon started to cloud over

To the right, the Pandillo valley

There are incredible contrasts of colour on the hillsides

One of many stone huts

The Picones ever nearer

The last part of the walk is pretty steep, as you make your way up to a gap between the two highest-looking peaks in the centre-left of the picture

And I was a hundred metres or so from the top when my camera decided it had taken its last photo, looking across to the north and Coteru el Teju. No amount of coaxing would change its mind - nor even the most colourful language I could come up with...

At almost 1300 metres there was quite a lot of snow around and on the other side of the Picones a good view of Porracolina and the final part of the road up to the Lunada pass totally white. Unfortunately, I was unable to photograph the view of the walk I'd made from above or the absolutely gorgeous sight of Alto Campoo, Peña Sagra and the Picos beautifully silhouetted away to the west - not that my camera would have done it justice anyway, even if it had been working...