Hiking

HIKING – HALF DAY

Discover the countryside by Nordic Walking!

If you’re spending your holidays in La Seu d’Urgell, take this opportunity! Try walking with poles, the right way, according to our instructions. In the meanwhile, discover the countryside in good company.

Apply for an excursion by Nordic Walking. We will pick you up right at your hotel, or arrange with you at a spot nearby or at the start of the track. This excursion is focused on tourists, and the common language will be English, or even other than English, if required.

After presenting ourselves, we distribute the Nordic Walking-poles, and look for some place to get introduced to the technique and for a little warming-up. Nordic Walking consists in adding poles to the natural movement of walking. This way we achieve a more complete exercise, and higher performance!

Soon we leave the town behind, and we’re surrounded by nature. The route runs along the riverbanks, countryside, meadows and finally through forest and wilderness, there where mountains become too tough to cultivate. However, it has great ecological value, and it’s a beautiful landscape.

The excursion lasts between 2 and 3 hours. We can decide about the distance beforehand, or during the walk, depending on our abilities and motivation. The tracks and paths form a network that allows us to design different routes at any time. The way back will always be another track than the one we started with. We will finish with a stretching session and calm down.

All of this may seem quite an enterprise, but since Nordic Walking is a more complete exercise, it allows you to get farther with less effort!

The technical details:

The distances indicate the length of the horizontal displacement between the going and the return,

The height difference indicates the difference in height between the lowest point (usually the beginning) and the highest point (usually the place to visit, the top) of the route,

The duration is an indication, without counting breaks and stops.

You will need good footwear, comfortable clothing, water or something to drink or eat. You might need sun cream, -glasses, or an extra piece of clothing as well. If you have, bring poles.

The abandoned village of Llirt

Following trails between oaks and boxwoods of the sunny slopes to the ancient ruins. After a break at the old terraces, we continue via a much flatter track to the ridge of Calbinyà, which is a great vantage point on the Urgellet towards the south. Here begins the descent.

Distance: 8 km.

Height difference: 355 m.

Duration: 3 h.

The graves of Santa Eugínia

We begin the route at La Torre Solsona, a medieval fortress that dominates the entire valley and the town. First between irrigated fields with slight ascent. Later, it gets steeper and goes through an arid and Mediterranean landscape. We stop at Santa Eugínia to observe the graves excavated in the rock. We return through the small valley of Anserall, which is a more shady place with leafy trees.

Distance: 9 km.

Height difference: 340 m.

Duration: 3.05 h.

The Casanoves Valley

For this excursion we leave La Seu d’Urgell southward, in order to wander along the irrigation canal of Segalers and enter into the Casanoves Valley. The creek and the orientation to the north of this small and narrow valley create a very humid environment, which causes abundant vegetation. We visit the abandoned farmhouse Cal Casanoves, standing forlorn halfway the ascent. We descend following the ridge of Nabiners. First so very covered by the branches of the trees in the valley, now open and raised we walk down on top of the ridge. With this excursion we also enjoy great panoramic views, but now from the shady side.

Distance: 8 km.

Height difference: 360 m.

Duration: 3 h.

The three proposals mentioned before, have La Seu d’Urgell as a starting point. Next we propose 2 excursions with start and end points near Oliana’s Lake, converting them optionally into hikes to be combined with a kayak activity.

El Cogulló del Turp - Let's make it to the Summit!

Yes, we will get there and come back within 3 hours and we do make a summit. The Turp is one of the easier peaks, reachable for young and old, since we can get quite close with a vehicle. Walking between fields of ‘trumfos’ – typical potato they grow at these heights – and pine forests that cover the north face, we reach the summit. The south face is bald and rocky, rather an abyss. A real summit! It is not the highest mountain, but it is the first of the Pre-Pyrenees, which stands out on the plain extending southwards. We can see Montserrat Mountain, while the foot of the Serra del Turp bathes in Oliana’s Lake.

Distance: 5 km.

Height difference: 280 m.

Duration: 2.20 h.

El Boter de Santa Maria

This excursion is the only one that starts with a descent (and ends with a climb). A great descent indeed! The starting point is on the edge of the abyss, at the top of the ravine that encloses the valley of Valldarques. We can view it below us, virgin and apparently inaccessible. Though, there is, a ‘grau’ – as they call it here – which allows you to descend safely. We pass by the Torre de la Vila, which in the Medieval Age served as a watch tower and fortress. We take a longer and refreshing break at ‘el Boter (waterfall) de Santa Maria’. On the way back we visit the village of Valldarques with its Romanesque church of Sant Romà.

Distance: 4 km.

Height difference: 225 m.

Duration: 1.45 h.

PRICE (minimum 5 people): Adults 16€ · Children (6 to 14 years) 9€
RENTAL OF POLES: 5€ (optional)

If you are not the minimum number of people, check prices.

RESERVE

HIKING – FULL DAY

Climbs to summits

We get up early, ready to live an adventure. In the freshness and serenity of the morning, climbing goes easier, without sweating. When the sun gets higher and burns more vigorously, we have already won a few hundred meters in height and we are in a relatively cool place. It also guarantees meteorological stability and good visibility to enjoy the views.

If you have never climbed to a peak, you will see that it really is a unique experience. Although perhaps we are not so prepared and fit, it is worth doing an extra effort and getting tired a bit. It makes you feel more alive! The cadence of the steps, now looking at the path, then looking up to choose the best access. See how the landscape changes.

We have left the fields behind us, the next stage goes through the woods. First common and holm oaks, then pine trees and fir trees. We move on and the landscape becomes more open. Trees are scarcer and alpine meadows are becoming increasingly wider. Height is one of the factors that determines what vegetation we find on our way.

A beautiful orchid is the reason for a brief but welcome pause. Let us not forget, however, that we have come to make the summit! The final mile is usually the hardest, but once we’ve reached the top, the tiredness fades away. We look around to see other mountain ranges, one behind another, increasingly with a lighter blue. In the valley we can distinguish some road and tiny houses.

Civilisation is so far and so small now. Day-to-day problems are relative. Here we are far, on top of the mountain, there is only bald rock. The wind blows in your face, you open all your senses. We are alone in such magnitude and we are alive and kicking!

El Pic de Monturull

The Pic de Monturull is one of the highest peaks in the region, but it has relatively soft shapes. It is between the picturesque village of Aransa and the border of Andorra, in the Axial Pyrenees. Creeks, marshes and granite blocks dominate the landscape. What makes the ascension to Monturull more attractive is its passage along the high mountain lakes, the Estanys de la Pera. There is an option to make a circular route that combines Monturull with Pic de Perafita and the Mountain refuge of Estanys de la Pera. Then it would take us an hour more.

Distance: 9.6 km.

Height difference: 619 m.

Duration: 4.30 h.

El Vulturó

The Vulturó is a more technical and demanding climb. La Serra del Cadí is well known for its characteristic silhouette and as the leading actor of the Natural Park to which it gives its name. From La Seu d’Urgell and many other points in Alt Urgell and La Cerdanya, its majestic limestone wall is visible. We propose an ascent and a descent by the same path, but with very different stretches. From the village of Querforadat to the Collada de Jussana, we climb a gentler slope between pasture fields and mountain pine forest. From Collada de Jussana, which is an open place, we can see the crag from much closer and the harder climbing part, by the scree and the Baridana Canal. In some steps you need hands and feet. From the pass we see the panorama to the south over the smoother slope of the Cadí. We turn left to follow the ridge and reach the Vulturó or Puig de la Canal Baridana, the highest peak of the Serra del Cadí.

Distance: 10 km.

Height difference: 1,253 m.

Duration: 8 h.

El Coscollet

The Coscollet is the summit of the Serra d’Aubenç. It’s foot bathes in Oliana’s Lake, on the west bank. It is located in the Pre-Pyrenees and although it is not the highest peak, it is no less spectacular. We will first notice it at the Barranc del Faig (canyon). As we move forward, the ravines on the sides gain in height. The northern slope of Aubenç has a gentle incline and is covered with forests, where pine and oak are abundant. At the end of Barranc del Faig we enter into the vast beech grove that gives it its name. Humidity and shadow are constant here and suitable conditions for this Atlantic species as well. The biggest surprise is the arrival at the Tossal de Remolins, from where we can see El Coscollet with a crag facing the south that falls half a kilometer almost straight down. We see more cliffs and rocky ravines and limestone, generally bald and with irregular forms and scarsely covered by vegetation, which is more typical of arid areas. Below us we see the lake and in front our sight disappears in the Central Depression of Catalonia. There is often a fog over the plains south from the Pre-Pyrenean mountain ranges, from where we see it as a blanket of clouds. In the background, a hundred kilometers far from here, the mountain of Montserrat rises from the fog.

Distance: 15.5 km

Height difference: 1,000 m.

Duration: 7.15 h.

PRICE (minimum 8 people): Adults 20€ · Children (6 to 14 years) 17€
RENTAL OF POLES: 5€ (optional)