Lagunaseca

A village at high altitude

Lagunaseca lies in Serranía Alta (upper Serranía), very close to Masegosa and Santa María del Val. It is one of the coldest villages in the mountains, with snow almost every winter.

The torcas

The Torcas de Lagunaseca are a field of closed depressions, torcas (collapse sinkholes), dolines, uvalas and poljes, opened in rocks some 200 million years old. Water dissolving the limestone, ice breaking it apart and accumulated snow have shaped them. They have been a natural monument since 2003, covering 188 hectares.

Box, spiny broom, thyme, sage and lavender grow on the plateau, with scattered Spanish junipers and black pine, and fringes of barberry, a thorny shrub native to the peninsula. Rock plants such as té de risca grow on the doline walls; at the bottom, where there is more soil and shelter, are hazels, Montpellier maples and St Lucie cherries.

Lagunaseca’s torcas are more open than those at Palancares, with gentler slopes: one guide describes them as older, more developed forms. When two join they form an uvala; a larger, more open group forms a polje. Ice also works on the walls: water enters the cracks, freezes, expands and breaks the rock, which falls into scree down the slopes. After heavy rain, some water may remain briefly at the bottom of a sinkhole. One was used years ago as a dump, with rubbish, wardrobes and washing machines; it was cleared and replanted, and now looks natural.

Routes

The SL-CU 5 (local trail), Torcas de Lagunaseca, is a 4 km walk through the monument.

Truffles by mule

In the 1970s, a villager who had learnt from his brother in Huesca began searching for black truffles with a dog in the woods of Lagunaseca, and others soon joined him. Buyers came to Molina de Aragón on Thursdays, so the truffles travelled by mule: a two-day journey, with a night in Megina. Four-wheel drives soon replaced the mules, and town councils began auctioning truffle-gathering rights. With a warmer climate and woodland becoming overgrown through lack of livestock, wild truffles have declined, and the village has turned to cultivation: after land consolidation, a group of villagers is planting holm oaks and oaks inoculated with truffle fungus, and two plots in the municipality cover about 20 and 12 hectares. The season runs from December to March.

Lagunaseca’s houses

Lagunaseca retains one of the most complete collections of rural architecture in the Serranía, with large two-storey houses, broad eaves on timber brackets and porches on upright stone supports. It has a Baroque fountain, and its church of San Bernabé retains remains of the 15th-century church, with two timber ceilings, one octagonal in the apse.

Young hands on the seasonal livestock journeys

Until the 1960s, boys from Lagunaseca, Masegosa or Vega del Codorno made their first seasonal livestock journey at twelve or thirteen as a rapaz, the lowest-ranking member of the team. They were hired at Michaelmas by the large flock owners of Checa, Peralejos or Valdemeca, who, instead of a wage, «costeaban» (covered the costs of) between thirty and fifty sheep of their own, travelling with the master’s flock. The descent to Jaén in November took about twenty-two days along drove paths, sleeping outdoors beside the fire, with blankets and albarcas, traditional sandals; one year, the flock expected from Belvalle arrived at night, forcing its way through deep snow. On the winter pasture they lived in a round chozo, a hut of stone and branches, all around the hearth in order: the head shepherd by the door, the rapaz on the other side. The rapaz had to watch the sheep at night in a chocillo, a small shelter of rushes, while the others ate supper, hearing wolves beyond Despeñaperros, with a mastiff in a spiked collar beside him. To cross swollen rivers they used mansos, trained rams taught «a la piedra» (using a stone), which came when called and drew the flock after them. They scarcely tasted meat. From the 1960s the sheep travelled south by train from Chillarón or Caracenilla, and soon afterwards most of the shepherds emigrated. The story is told in Shepherds of the Serranía.

Plan your visit

Walk SL-CU 5 slowly, to see how the shapes of the torcas and their plants change.

Before you travel

The dolines have unstable walls and edges: keep away from the edge. Nights are very cold and it snows in winter; ask about the condition of the tracks.

Combine with

Masegosa is 1.8 km away in a straight line and Santa María del Val 3.5 km.