Prepirenaica All Mountain

WELCOME TO REINO DE LOS MALLOS, THE PLACE WHERE THE STONE GIANTS LIVE. BEFORE ENTERING THIS KINGDOM, WE MUST CROSS THROUGH CABALLERA AND LOARRE MOUNTAIN RANGES WHERE THE STUNNING LOARRE CASTLE, CONSIDERED ONE OF THE BEST PRESERVED ROMANESQUE CASTLES IN EUROPE, STILL LIES. TODAY ROCKS, ALTITUDE AND MIDDLE AGES WILL BE YOUR TRAVEL PARTNERS.

Third stage offers some variants that allow shortening or lengthening the route according to your strengths. Departing from Bolea, it leads to Aniés by the comfortable Camino Natural de la Hoya. The village of Aniés is the beginning of the day’s first climb heading to the impressive limestone walls where Virgen de la Peña de Aniés hermitage lies. It’s an unique and overwhelming place full of beauty which is worth a visit, just 10 minutes of walking up from our track.

From the church walls, the route goes on climbing up to La Paul de Aniés refuge, where the first variant of the stage departs. It’s a nice downhill singletrack called Petrolanga that goes straight to Loarre Castle. The base track climbs up to Puzo fountain to descend by an amazing singletrack to Loarre Castle. In both cases, the arrival to the castle is probably one of the best pictures of the tour.

A shorter variant to the base route consists in not dropping to the castle by singletrack but going straight to the village by the main dirt road. In this case you’ll miss one of the best monuments of the whole tour. From Loarre Castle another variant shortens the route by the scenic Cachicar track, which goes straight to Marcuello Castle and Santo Román pass, close to Riglos. This is the best choice if you feel tired now, because it goes quite flat avoiding two big climbs.

Base track climbs up about 400 m through a pine forest to a pass that connects with an outstanding downhill singletrack dropping to Garona Valley. Almost 8 km of never-ending singletracks to Rasal, where a paved road (9 km) leads to Gallego River bridge and later to La Peña Lake. After crossing the lake by trainway, the route climbs again to Escalete Gorge, another amazing and hidden feature of this land. The last ascent of the day goes up to Santo Román pass, where we’ll take the incredible trail headingto towards Riglos. The magnitude of Mallos de Riglos is unreal.

After the singletrack, a nice unpaved road goes under the smaller “mallos” and finally arrives to the lovely village of Riglos, a tiny place under huge and vertical walls. Riglos is the perfect spot to end our stage.