http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees"Miles which do not feed the senses and nourish the spirit are just empty statistics. Distance is in a sense meaningless. It is the journey through time and nature that matters. Mike Cudahy (Wild Trails to far Horizons).
Eñaut had a mild gum infection, nothing serious, but it wouldn't surprise me if the trial of that day hadn't sent all available internal repair equipment to his knees leaving his gob up for grabs, as it were!
The path up that hill went straight up, straight up, it needs saying again: "straight f*cking up" and in fact the climb confounds and concurs with the above quote. Confounds because after 350metres (of straight up) your lungs are drawing strength from every faculty: All you hear is your own heart beat; all you see is blurred bark or root; all you smell is sweat; and all you feel is that there can't be much more of the up. Concurs with it because the distance we covered horizontally was probably only 100 metres!!
I did stop once to discover the tiny red blur in my vision was a wild strawberry and raspberries could be found but their calorific content was equal to wiping the sweat off your brow.
This picture has nothing to do with that lowly, draining, heart bursting hump, but they all led to this kind of view in the end. The mountain prefers that you see all as one. The blister, the ant, the rock, rain and the mountain top all resist division in the mind,
But if we can just park Zen awareness for a minute, it's very difficult to write a travel blog like this1111111111111111...
The view at the top of the ball-breaking mount was nothing to write home about, in fact it was so ordinary I didn't bother photographing it. Instead I put it out of my mind and dropped down the other side into a modern Andorran village full of holiday apartments and 4x4s. I walked up the high street and saw Eñaut outside a cafe. I instinctively new he was waiting for me for some reason, he could have been in the next valley by the time I'd settled down to eggs, bacon, toast and two black coffees.
He'd got the number of a local dentist. However we went into a nearby chemist and they sold him some powder that might settle his discomfort. It did.
Our water bottles filled at the village well we pushed on up the hill past the day trippers and horse trains, up and up again, in the full heat of the day, dwarfed on all sides by mountains, the only way was up. Coma Pedrosa the highest point in Andorra was our short term goal, and we could see it ahead. After it was Cabana de Baiau where we both hoped for a bunk.
About a kilometre up the track I stopped to pant and waved Eñaut on, I must have been getting fitter all the time, but it didn't feel like it yet. Higher and higher I climbed on the busy path, passing day walkers, and coming up to cross paths with longer range walkers with bigger packs and usually walking poles clacking in amongst the stones. Mine were still strapped to my rucksack. I couldn't get on with them very well but expected to use them coming down the big climbs to take the strain off my knees.
A lady, about 28 in running shorts sprinted past me! At about 1800metres. Phew. and only just over half way up. Of course I'm writing that now but I never thought in that detail going up, just doing what had to be done seemed easier. Later that day I remember thinking how absurd it was climbing like this and that it was only the challenge that gave it any logic. I was sure that there was something more profound in that and later fleshed it out with a quote "we defy augury" what moves those ants trooping back and forth under my feet climbing through those pine trees interminably up, we resist. That is the chaos of freedom.
So shackled to my self imposed task, I climbed, tired, unfit, ill-prepared, alone, but content. Loving the change, in me and all around in the changing landscape, and the shifting clouds.
When I reached the refugio before Baiau I stopped to see if Eñaut was there. he wasn't. I had some water and a couple of chocolate biscuits. I stood by the door talking to a couple of Dutch walkers smoking like it was their last request. The rain started and washed over the dry paths around the refugio. It wet the grass and transformed the foreground from what it was to give it a moorland feel. Walkers came in and it crossed my mind to do more than stretch my legs in front of the fire in there, but no, out I went toward a possible rendezvous with a new friend. The rain eased up and I repaired a signpost to the refugio with a stone, reseating the 6 inch nails in their original holes first.
Another 100 metres up and I saw a familiar pair of jeans up ahead. We stopped for a breather while he confessed to getting lost (how else had I caught him up!) He wasn't sure if he was going to do the peak at Pedrosa, if not I'd see him in the cabana. Then he was gone again, and I was left alone with my thoughts, trudging over endless broken rock like a barren rocky purgatory, or gulag wasteland.
I think it was about 2.30 in the afternoon by now and we had been walking since 7.30 that morning. I wouldn't get to the cabana until about 8.00 that night. But what a day! A truly beautiful day with so much assimilation of the terrain that I could feel that I had shed some fears and gained some confidence.
I saw my Basque friend's rucksack tucked behind a rock with a rock on it, before I saw him. He was coming down over the set of peaks that lead up to the Pedrosa Peak. I left my bag next to his and leapt up invigorated by the proximity of this conquest. I met him on the second peak and he told me it was 20 minutes away. My ears had ceased to hear fair warning and I bid him farewell, asking him to take my backpack too and leave it at the col head. His middle finger replied.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXX7gD058nA This is me on the top. I took a short cut down and still took 4 hours to get to the refuge!
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| Egyptian Vulture |
Some unbelievable photos........great stuff bro..
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