Portús Route

The Portús path begins in Adons, the first marrades already reveal a terrain poor in vegetation conditioned by the altitude, the karst modelling and the lack of farmland.

On the first pass, in the meadows of Lo Cumó, a gentle path advances over a rocky substrate that never ceases to amaze us with its scratched shapes, with small rods or camels, which are filled with rainwater, and where domestic and wild animals drank in a country, in general, quite dry.

At higher altitude, the vegetation changes. The Scots pine, in isolation, the boxwood with its characteristic red fruits and the thick bunches of lavender decorate a path that approaches the hollow where the pieces of the Avedoga are located.

The final part of the path climbs up the Avedoga shovel, but it is here that we will pay attention to one of the protagonists of the itinerary: the presence of the fir tree, a natural testimony of an old fir tree that covered everything and that centuries ago disappeared as a result of human action. The popular saying explains that it was the place where the wolves of the region hid and that this was one of the reasons for its destruction.

After walking between two guilla or besurts, a garden of low bushes will take us to the inhospitable slope of the mountain range, where the energy of the relief is manifested in the vertical cliffs that rush towards the Terreta. It is the territory of gralles, kestrels, griffon vultures and, of course, the emblematic bearded vulture.

In front of us, collapsed, he finally appears… the Portús, a sword-cut slanted over the limestone mountain range, about twenty metres high by three metres wide, where plant species such as the king’s crown and the bear’s ear grow, and which during the history of the settlement of Ribagorça has certainly brought the mountain closer to the plain.