Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park
Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Interesting facts
- In 2003 scientists cloned the extinct Pyrenean ibex, but the kid lived only minutes, making it the only animal to go extinct twice.
- The last Pyrenean ibex, a female named Celia, was found dead on 6 January 2000, crushed by a falling tree.
- Monte Perdido is the highest limestone massif in Europe, and it still holds a small glacier on its northern face.
- Created by royal decree on 16 August 1918, Ordesa was the second national park ever declared in Spain.
- Some 1,400 plant species grow in the park, about 45 percent of all Pyrenean flora, including more than 80 endemics.
- The Faja de las Flores is a natural ledge some 2,400 metres up the canyon wall, with roughly a kilometre of sheer rock below it.
- The French explorer and photographer Lucien Briet helped make the Ordesa valley known and campaigned for its protection.
- The Añisclo canyon was cut by the Bellós river, and at its lowest point the park drops to around 700 metres above sea level.
- About 50 mammal, 153 bird, 19 reptile and 8 amphibian species have been recorded in the park, among them the rare Pyrenean desman.
Why it is worth it
Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park lies on the Spanish side of the central Pyrenees in the province of Huesca, and it is a landscape made of limestone. Around Monte Perdido, 3,355 m high, great beds of Cretaceous and Eocene rock have been folded, lifted and then cut by ice and water into deep canyons, stepped cliffs and high cirques. The contrast is the point: from forested valley floors at around 750 m, walls of banded rock rise hundreds of metres to plateaus of bare karst, pitted with sinkholes, fissures and caves.
Four valleys radiate from the massif, each with its own character. The Ordesa valley is the classic one — a U-shaped trough carved by glaciers, its sides layered like a cut cake, with a trail climbing past a string of waterfalls to the Circo de Soaso and the horsetail fall of the Cola de Caballo. Añisclo, Escuaín and Pineta are the others, each a deep cut into the massif, and together they show how differently ice and running water have worked the same rock. Above, chamois graze the ledges, marmots whistle in the meadows, and bearded vultures and golden eagles ride the updrafts.
The park is one of the oldest in Spain: a small reserve of 21 km² in the Ordesa valley was protected in 1918, and it was enlarged to its present 156 km² in 1982. In 1997 it became part of the cross-border World Heritage Site Pyrénées – Mont Perdu, shared with the French cirques on the other side of the ridge. The park also carries a melancholy footnote in natural history: the last Pyrenean ibex, or bucardo, died here in January 2000, and the subspecies has been extinct since.
Getting there
The main gateway is the village of Torla, at the mouth of the Ordesa valley. During Easter, summer and several autumn periods, private cars may not drive up to the Pradera de Ordesa, and a shuttle bus runs from the car park in Torla to the meadow, where the trails begin; outside those periods the road is open to cars. The nearest larger Spanish town is Barbastro, about 70 km away, and the nearest Spanish airport is Lleida-Alguaire (ILD), about 110 km. Lourdes and Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées Airport (LDE) are closer in a straight line but lie on the French side of the range.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Cirque de Gavarnie 5.9 km · cliff
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park is an IUCN Category II National Park situated in the Pyrenees. There has been a National Park in the Ordesa Valley since 1918. Its protected area was enlarged in 1982 to cover the whole region, amounting to 156.08 square kilometres.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
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