A day of mountain hiking with work colleagues: Route of the Xanas(Asturias-Spain)
Hi folks,
It is a source of pride to belong to a small, large company where the last day brings together the majority of the company's employees and partners to do something together, and on this occasion it was a medium-difficulty mountain route where laughter, sweat, camaraderie and, of course, good food in a typical Asturian village restaurant were in abundance.
Would you like to join us?
Meeting before the climb
As I told you, about a month ago, as the summer holidays were approaching, the company management began to collect ideas for the company day, and on this occasion my proposal for a mountain route called the Ruta de las Xanas, which is 20 kilometres from the city of Oviedo, where 50% of the company's employees live, and which starts in the village of Villanueva de Santo Adriano and ends in the village of Pedroveya, won the day.
Let me tell you that the origin of the name of the route comes from the Xanas, the Asturian name for the mythological creatures of the fairies of the forests and rivers.
As you will see, since a large part of the route runs through forests and a gorge that has been eroded by a river for thousands of years, this route takes its name from these creatures of Asturian mythology.
First meeting
As the members of the company come from different parts of Asturias, although many of us are from Oviedo, we all meet in the village of Villanueva de Santo Adriano at around 11.30 a.m. for coffee before starting our day in the mountains.
Start of the route
After coffee, we will drive to the car park at Las Xanas, where we will leave our vehicles. We begin to climb the first slopes of the route, on asphalt with an average gradient of 8%, which was a warning for those of us who are not very fit.
After the first 300 metres of asphalt, on the right, at the beginning of the Xanas Gorge, there is a sign with valuable information, such as the fact that if you go on a Wednesday, the restaurant at the end of the route will be closed.
The gorge
As soon as you leave the asphalted road, you start to climb a lot, walking along a stony path that makes up the first part of the gorge.
From this first area you can see the car park at the bottom, the village of Villanueva de Santo Adriano and the mountains on the other side of the valley.
As you climb up the first ramps of the gorge, you will notice that the path becomes narrower and narrower, and you will often find yourself walking between cuts in the mountain.
Although the route is not very difficult and not very long, it is always necessary to take care, as there are cuts in the mountain up to 500 metres high.
At the same time, in this first part of the route, called the gorge, we will find several tunnels dug by man in the limestone to allow passage.
As you can see in the following picture, the environment is beautiful with the different cuts in the mountain wall and as you can see, my companions were ahead of me because my physical condition is not the best due to my overweight.
Although I think the main reason for being left behind was that I was busy taking lots of photos and contemplating with the pause that such a beautiful place deserves.
This area of the gorge is undoubtedly the most beautiful part of the route, where the sight of the cuts in the wall and the high mountains with a good amount of vegetation was a treat for the senses.
However, it was also the place where there were some dangers, such as this small stretch of loose rock where the margin of error to avoid rolling down the slope was small.
As we gained altitude, even though fatigue was starting to take its toll, the cuts in the wall became more and more spectacular, like this one where I photographed my boss Rubén with his dog, or this area where the company's two main partners are.
But without a doubt, the most beautiful place in the gorge was the area where we all gathered to take a family photo, with the help of a mountaineer who came down from the route and offered to take a photo of us with the whole gorge in the background.
The forest and the climb to Pedroveya
Having completed the route through the gorge, we reached an area of forest just a few metres from the riverbed.
The type of forest we find here is mainly chestnut, beech and oak.
Throughout the forest we have to cross the river several times on wooden bridges that are very well preserved.
And we come across old water mills that have been completely abandoned, like the one I show you below.
This part of the forest is very beautiful, but it was in this area that I felt my strength failing me when I came across these large steps and a steep slope.
Pedroveya
But after so many steps, we finally reached an open area of mountains and meadows.
Sitting down to admire the Asturian countryside is a reward for the effort of reaching Pedroveya.
But the destination was a few metres further up, next to a church.Where I met my colleagues to take another photo.
Generosa House
As we knew we were going to burn a lot of calories, the company's management had reserved a table for us all to eat together at the Casa Generosa restaurant, which is completely decorated in the Asturian granaries (hórreos), with their ears of corn, garlic and even tools as decorations.
After a couple of beers with lemon to refresh us, we sat down to eat at one of the tables under one of these granaries.This restaurant has the same menu all year round, consisting of two starters, a choice of three main courses and dessert.
However, as we were a large group, they offered to bring us two casseroles with the starters and we could choose or eat from both.
The first dish they put on the table was a delicious 'fabada asturiana' with chorizo, blood sausage and cooked bacon as side dishes.
Also as a first course they brought us "Pote Asturiano", a very nutritious potato and cabbage stew.
For the main course they brought us 3 trays of different meats.
The first was a kid stew which was delicious.
The second platter had stewed free-range chicken.
And the third was veal stew with potatoes.
And to top it all off, the owner prepared a selection of desserts, including cheesecake, tiramisu, blueberry and the traditional Asturian dessert of rice pudding with burnt sugar on top.
A descent with caution
After lunch and coffee, we waited for an hour to talk about our plans for the summer, and then we started the descent, looking back at the landscapes we had seen before, but from a different perspective.
Just to let you know that the next day I had some pain, but I will come back sooner rather than later to do this route or others, because I had such a good time.
Kind regards.