Huerto Raso is the name of a small clearing, literally a flat garden, in the stony hills above the Vero, and the shelter marked Huerto Raso II lies about five kilometres from Alquézar. It is the second in a numbered pair, and, like the others near it, it belongs to the Levantine painted rocks that UNESCO listed in 1998. The flat patch of ground after which it is named is a rarity in this tilted country, and you can see why someone planted vegetables there.
The soil of the valley deserves a mention. Over most of the Sierra de Guara the earth is thin, stony and pale, a product of limestone that dissolves slowly in rain, and every patch of deeper soil has been used for crops. The pockets of red clay that you see in the fields are the insoluble residue of the rock, and they hold water better than the surrounding stone. Farmers here developed a system of dry-stone terraces to trap that soil and keep it from washing away in the violent storms of late summer.
The road to the shelter is slow, careful riding. From Alquézar you take a minor road that rises through oak and juniper, past a few abandoned farms, and the tarmac gets narrower and more broken as you go. There are no barriers, and the edges are often soft, so keep to the centre and slow down for blind corners. The reward is a feeling of being a long way from anywhere, with the Pyrenean ridge hazy in the north and griffon vultures soaring overhead.
Supplies are all in Barbastro, twenty-two kilometres away, and the pumps are on the roads into town. Alquézar offers simple meals, good coffee and a view, and the nearby walkways above the river make a fine short walk in the evening when the day-trippers have gone. In spring and autumn the light is excellent for photography, and the nights are cool enough to make you glad of a jumper.