Picón del Fraile is a high mountain pass at an elevation of 1.619m (5,311ft) above the sea level, located in the Collados del Asón Natural Park, in Cantabria, Spain.
The road to reach the pass is asphalted, but the last kilometers are part of a military road and are closed to traffic. On the summit there’s a military base of Escuadrón de Vigilancia Aérea nº12 (EVA 12), and several radars. Starting from Las Machorras, the road to reach the summit is 14,7km long with an average gradient of 5,4%. The last km includes 17% sections.
The weather on this zone is terryble, harsh and highly unpredictable. In February 2013, for 40 days the road was impossible to snowplug and the only way to reach the military base was by helicopter. The snow had walls over 20m.
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