Want to see some big birds, in a big gorge, while walking along an itty bitty trail? Congost de Mont-rebei in northern Spain has you covered. Vultures, ospreys, and eagles call this gorge home and are easily spotted during breeding season, which lasts from December to June. But the tiny trail you travel on to see them is perhaps the most spectacular sight. Hewn right out of the sheer rock walls, the trail is as popular as it is perilous, offering its own bird’s-eye view of the Noguera Ribagornza river, unobstructed by safety barriers of any kind. The path used today was carved in 1984, well above the ancient cliff-carved path that was a casualty of a reservoir project upstream. Though newer, the current trail follows the old, both in geography and engineering sophistication. Check out this harrowing hike below.

The sheer, limestone rock walls soar more than 1,640 feet in Congost de Mont-rebei, but most of the path is just half that high up. Image by Fofo

The Noguera Ribagornza river is both a natural and political border between the regions of Catalonia and Aragon. Image by Claudi Cervello

The current trail was first carved out in 1984, above the original cliff-carved trail used in ancient times and whose submerged sections you can still see along the trek. Image by WikiCommons

The occasional hand rail is provided for the cautious, a rare modern concession along the otherwise rustic trail. Image by Miguel Vicente Martinez Juan

The trail is popular with both hikers and very daring mountain bikers. Image by Jonathan Taglione

The Noguera Ribagornza river now covers most of the original trail, drowned due to a reservoir project upstream. Image by Jonathan Taglione

People have lived in this area since at least the Bronze Age and traversed this gorge on trails cut out of the rock for centuries. Image by Josep Roura

The cliff trail is a little less than a mile long but leads into many miles of trails that wind throughout the protected preserve. Image by Jonathan Taglione