Weather Watchers

Friday 12 January 2024

We’d been keeping one eye on the weather forecast and the other on the distant hills as we travelled west along the Cantabrian coast. Conscious that rain falling on us at sea level would be falling as snow in the Picos de Europa mountains. We don’t mind the snow, the van has winter tyres on and we carry snow chains in case things get serious. 

We were hoping for a dry spell for a couple of days and the forecast suggested Friday might be our best, and possibly only, window for a while. So on Thursday we drove up through the River Cares gorge and stopped at Potes, a pretty village with a number of stone bridges crossing the river. The village is a base for tourism in the area and a 15 minute drive from here leads you to the Fuente Dé cable car. Although the cafe was open for business the cable car wasn’t going anywhere today, probably due to the very poor visibility or the sparse number of visitors.

Onwards towards Riaño we drove for miles through the mist eventually popping out above the clouds at a pass of 1609 meters (5,279 feet). The snow which had fallen over the previous days was thick on the verges and hillsides but the roads were perfectly clear and well gritted. Patches of blue sky appearing looked promising. 

The designated car park for campervans at Riaño was unusable being thick with snow and on an incline so we parked opposite and quickly put up all the silver thermal blinds and pulled the curtains shut to keep the heat in. It’s a relatively new town built when they flooded the valley containing the original village of Riaño along with seven other villages, back in 1987 to create a large reservoir. The ‘new’ church was built using the stones from the original church and nearby are all the bells saved from all the submerged churches.

Overnight the temperature plummeted to -5 but no more snow fell. Inside the van we snuggled up in our sleeping bag and wore extra layers. Dave even slept in is wooly hat, my mop of unruly thick hair thankfully keeps my head warm. 

As promised the skies were clear and blue the next morning & we continued our trip through the Picos (with temperatures dropping to -11 at one point) and then headed down the valley towards León where it had ‘warmed up’ to -3 degrees!! In time for coffee and a cake.