Today our destination is 2048m high Cuernon summit. The path begins some 8km from our home – in village of Somaniezo. We start to walk at 8.50am to Santa Lucia de Luz sanctuary. We follow the country road by the Aniezo stream. The temperature is just above zero and everywhere are the marks of the frost. We walk in shadow of the hill – it is cold. We are out of the shadow only after a two hours walk. Still it does not get much warmer. Instead we have a sun in front of us just above the path – it is hard to even lift the eyes. No chance to see the way ahead – except maybe the couple of meters.
When we climb to the open space we get the cold wind as well. We reach the sanctuary, but are not lucky enough to see the statue (they say it is 32cm long and called Santucha due to it’s size).
After having a short break we proceed up to meadows and then start to search for our summit. First we conquer a 1940m high summit. We see from there that the Cuernon is a sharp pile of rocks. We struggle up from one side then from other. Everywhere we get stuck in between large rocky stones. The last meters I proceed alone. I climb to the ridge but there are still about 50 meters up through the rocks. So I surrender.
The route takes 10 hours in total.
This is our last day in Picos de Europa. Tomorrow we go to Santander, then fly to Hahn where we stay overnight before to take the final flight to Riga.