The road to Portillo de Lunada is not recommended to people afraid of heights
Portillo de Lunada is a high mountain pass at an elevation of 1.360m (4,461ft) above the sea level, located on the boundary of Cantabria and Castile and León, in Spain. The road is not recommended to people afraid of heights, especially when driving on the cliff side.
Tucked away in the Collados del Asón Natural Park, within the Soba valley, the road to the summit, also known as Portillo de Hoz, is totally paved in very poor conditions. It’s called CA-643 (in Cantabria) and BU-572 (in Castile and León). The pass was in use in the Roman times, from the Meseta to Cantabria.
Set high in the Cordillera Cantábrica, a mountain range in the northern part of the country, access to the pass is typically open all year round, with the occasional closure in winters due to dangerous weather conditions. The road to the summit is very steep, hitting a 12% of maximum gradient through some of the ramps.
The pass is 31.5km (19.57 miles) long running south-north from Espinosa de los Monteros (in Castile and León) to San Roque de Riomiera (in Cantabria). North of the pass, a minor paved road closed to private vehicles climbs up to Picón del Fraile, a mountain peak at 1.590m (5,216ft) above the sea level.