Season 2016

[Bierzo Baggie]

La Peña del Seo 1576m

Charlie Cat said “find me a mountain”.
Here is one.
 It's not the highest of mountains but it is a magical one. It’s a mountain which holds a thousand secrets with enough tales of espionage, secret agents and Nazis to be worthy of another Indiana Jones episode.
There are indeed enough tales to fill several books.
One of those books has already been written.
Raul Garrido’s novel “El año del Wolfram” was a prize winner in the 80s. Much of the story was based on fact and its main character is a dense element as heavy as gold and as black as a moonless Bierzo night.
 
Wolfram or tungsten has the highest melting point of all the elements which makes it ideal for use in cannon shells and missiles. There were rich deposits in Portugal and northern Spain and for a couple of decades the stuff was like gold-dust for many impoverished little villages in the vicinity of a mine. One of the biggest mines in El Bierzo was found within the huge lump of rock called “la Peña del Seo”. The Nazis knew how to exploit the tungsten deposits better than anybody. They paid a handsome price for it too and gangs of young men from miles around would scramble over the crags armed with sacks, picks and pistols. In those terrible times a man was prepared to kill for a decent piece of wolfram.
  In Garrido’s book, a tantalising mixture of fact and fiction, there was the mysterious figure of a British secret agent who lived near Cacabelos. His role ranged from smuggling POWs between the Pyrenees and the Atlantic ports, providing a safe haven for wounded guerrilla fighters in the aftermath of the Spanish civil war and keeping tabs on wolfram movements. This person really existed and there are still people who (just about) remember him although his actual role in all of the above is sometimes cloudy and unclear. Can’t expand on this any more, I lent my copy of the book to Jesus Scooter-man 2 years ago after a previous visit to “la peña” and I haven’t seen it since!
 
Splendid Sunday morning. Circular route from Cadafresnas village, up past the ghostly ruins of the miners’ barracks, past the mine face which is slightly higher up, and then on to the mountain, a merry scramble across the top and down the other side, a soft shoe shuffle through the snow and back to the village. Didn’t see a soul, just me and my shadow.     2 hours 50 minutes.
 
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