I walked this Camino in late September 2008.
There are two new albergues, one at Buza 46 km. from Leon, and the second, opened in August 2008, at the village of Pajares, 7km or so past the Puerto de Pajares, the high point of the Camino.
The waymarking is good to very good all the way to Buiza and a little beyond, and also beyond the village of Pajares. There are some useful diagrammatic maps on the Asociación Astur-Leonesa
site at
http://www.caminosantiagoastur.com/ and they also have a link to Google maps which, if you are intending to avoid a lot of walking on the N630 by taking the Pobladura de la Tercia route, you will need to study quite careufully since it is completely unmarked on the ground. The route which is marked on the ground, but not on the map, goes through Rodiazmo and joins the N630 at Villanuevo de la Tercia. There is a restaurant with rooms (around 25 euros) 2 km. south
Stories that there are places to stay near the summing, eight at Arbas or Puerto de Pajares appear to be completely without foundation. The parador at the Puerto has been shut for years.
We will be adding the photographs of this route to the
http://www.santiago-compostela.net website sometime in the next year, but in the meanwhile, I would be happy to let anyone who is interested have a look at them.
There are very few pilgrims on this route (the Pajares refugio has had an average of 30 pilgrims a month so far) but it is a really nice walk, and, given better waymarking over the high section, would be even better.
It is a very good walk through some stunning