Pics de Vallhiverna (Picos de Ballibierna)

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.”  Martin Burber

This clip dies not do justice to the bleakness of the landscape that surrounded me; nor the oppressiveness of the wind howling around me. (Nor my bible reading skills). Nor does it show the self- chastisement eddying about my thoughts or the desolation and barrenness closing in with every inch of altitude.  No trees, no grass, no lichen, no, no, no, life! (only me) Earlier on the trail a group of young Spaniards had briefed me on the path around the peaks ahead.  They made it sound so straight forward, so pedestrian, so doable that my head was duped into a false expectation that was never going to appear real. Meanwhile, as I staggered up towards the thin grey line that etched itself across the front of this glaciated slag-heap, I could see another couple of Spaniards struggling up ahead.  They were a couple who had passed me while I was filling my water bottle at a stream below.  I sensed then that all was not  right between them, and wondered if it was the bad karma from this aesthetically challenged charcoal hump that had soured their day out. 

The path was about ten inches wide and gave way with each footstep.  The grey shale that was this mountain refused to be compacted, refused to aid the climber, refused comfort.  The discomfort increased with the gradient until relief came only as the terrain shifted to solid mountain, this relief was nothing to light a cigar for though, as now, tired, dry, and buffeted by the odd wandering vortex of lost wind I was climbing straight up a sixty degree face. 

At the col as usual, the child was born, pain forgotten and panoramas, views and vistas cherished. A broad swathe of ridge-top horned round from me to my right. Straight ahead a valley stretched around to the left.

The couple were sitting apart, either side of the path eating their fruit and sandwiches.  They didn't offer any conversation, and not wanting to intrude I walked through them and stopped at the next projecting buttress on this unfriendly mound. I left my rucksack and carried on round towards the peaks.  

An unscheduled detour (lost?) - Pics de Vallhivernos

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Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.  ~Ray Bradbury

Standing ................................................here.. and looking down to the first lake, where I took the picture of the moraine in the last entry,  it doesn't look as bad as the Una y demi horas, sangre, sudor y lagrimas would like to testify to!  Reaching the grass track was no small comfort.  
The picture above is looking back over my shoulder, but it could have been in any direction.  On the map and in reality there were lakes everywhere.  Add to this the fork in the path caused by a branch line in the GR11 and  where you're standing,  is not where you should be standing.  Signs were sent to me! Alas I ignored them.  My subconscious nagged and prodded and poked my seeming self: "that lake is too long"; "that cabana is not on the map" but the most irrational sign was the sudden appearance of nettles everywhere.  Their acrid perfume rose up and soiled the sweet air, the nettle avoidance tic entered my gait, the area took on the look of waste land between an allotment and a railway siding in Stockport.  "Vuelta capullo!!" it screamed. [(gracias Eñaut!!)]

I had a map and, with the appearance of a 15 acre reservoir on my left where a deserted farmhouse should have been, I decided it was time to look more closely at it.

This photo is borrowed from danirando-wifeo.com. (Google-images) The battery on my phone was getting low and I had dopped my cam-corder in the toilet at Refugi de Colomers! (luckily it wa..) I had stopped at that brand new refugio for coffee etc (I know, I digress) and sat outside in 45 degrees of heat eating a sandwich and looking with amazement on runners of the Carros de Foc stopping to have their arrival ticked off as they completed a run between nine refugios.  The record was nine hours and something!!
http://www.carrosdefoc.com/esp/la-travesia.html This link shows the route with approximate times - 24 hours! Billy Wizz lives.

View of the old Refugio de Colomers taken from the heli-pad of the new one.

Where was I? Studying the map, weighing up whether to return and pick up the original trail or be adventurous and take the - unknown to me at the time- 'north face of the Eiger route'.  Ok, I exaggerate, but please remember as you read on, your blogger is no experienced climber, is the wrong side of 50, alone, and on his back, lest ye have forgot, sits a 13kilo rucksack shaped albatross.

Refugio d'Anglos.

 “When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D. H. Lawrence

The birch trees were like old friends: shading me from the sun; easing my knees with a carpet of russet leaves,  I nodded at them obligingly and breathed in the oxygen rich air amidst the sun dappled bark.  This walk just got better and better.
My euphoria was dampened a little by the ground steepening and before long I was out of the wood.  Not before harvesting a thicket of raspberry canes though, where I noticed the white pith of recently picked berries, Martin and Barbora probably.  The trees thinned out to almost nothing as the path wound up the side of the mountain.  It cut across boulders and up onto the raised basin that held Lake Gran.  Behind the lake was the refuge.  I couldn't see M & B and headed for the wooden hut.  It was empty which was a nice surprise.
Inside was a table, two benches, some candles and half a bottle of vodka.  The back third of it  was a raised section for four or five sleeping bags.  I sat on the step while my water tried to boil and heard laughter and splashing.  After a swim they came up and we put together a loose plan for tomorrows assault on Aneto.

Lake Gran with the refugio a speck centre left, and below.

Martin and Barbora wanted to sleep outside under the stars, so I had the hut to myself. I slept like a log until the petulant winds nudged the door open.  I wondered how the lovers were fairing outside and went back to sleep.
In the morning the muffled jangle of sheep bells entered my consciousness, and I sprang out of bag to see a blanket of blue sky spreading out over the new hills.  Down to the lake for a freshen up I dived into the clear, cold water and felt my lungs contract.  It was bracing but bearable and it felt good for my bag-weary shoulder and back muscles.  By the time I got back to the hut  M & B where packing up, I wished them luck and said I'd see them by the lake under Aneto.  They took off about an hour before me an hour to quietly meditate, drink tea and tidy up the cabana.  There was an acre of recessional moraine to test my ankle supportless walking boots on, just around the corner.

The only way out of one of three valleys like this was straight up the middle!

Up, up, up to that refugio.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

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Not this refugio, this cabana was 2 metres from the main road cutting past the reservoir from the tunnel.  To get here I walked.  Martin and Barbora hitched and were lucky quickly, but I liked the control, and certainty of Shanks' pony. This cabana de l'Hospitalet was at about 1600 m and it was about 3.30pm refugio d'Anglo was at 2300m.  It took me about 3 hours, all the climb was steep but it was through birch forest with a fast flowing stream cutting through it. With mini waterfalls and cool pools it was too tempting.  I lost twenty minutes bathing, and cooling my leg muscles.

 It was beautiful to be amongst trees again too.  For the past three days I'd hardly seen one...

Czech 'twitcher' - perfect sandwich.

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(this is the link for your small, kind donation!) Ty
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain(and Frank, MCMA, Moston)

I passed this rock and perhaps it was the altitude, or the wild mushrooms, but I saw a Zen garden here.  It was late in the afternoon and I thought to camp here,  with the mist falling there wasn't much to see, but I was so fresh and it was only 5.30  (I guessed) so the garden drifted quickly into the mist and we pushed on (me and my feet) until getting lost no longer looked like an option.

That mist was so thick they must have shipped it over from Ire..er..Belgium!  I camped on a mass of deep spongy grass just off the path and next to a big altar of a stone I could burn my stove on,  Conversation was thin on the ground over the beef and fried potatoes so I looked around to see if anyone was in a mood.  I wasn't.  Everything was going so well, it was the cloud that had descended over me that created an eerie atmosphere.  Cleaning up and turning in  I started thinking about when I could come back here -  for good?.  Later  the katabatic wind paid an unwelcome visit and disturbed my sleep again.  

Aneto - not.

In the morning feeling fine the mist had gone and the marmots shrieked the day awake.    After Port de Ruis I could see Aneto far off with a neckerchief of glacier under its chin.  I knew it was there because some one I passed pointed it out to me.  He was wrong I found out later, but it didn't matter, Aneto was there somewhere and I was getting closer. 

Port de Ruis was at 2320 metres the refugio was at 1700m about 3 kilometres away.  So more knee and heart breaking descent. This section of the path was busy with a big increase in the number of French walkers.  Below in the valley was the start of the Tunel de Vielha, an artery from France and there was parking below.

It was about one o'clock, (looking at the sun!) and very hot. The path was steep and dusty. The shade under the occasional pine tree was cool and irresistible. The people were friendly. 

The map said the refugio was out of my way above the tunnel's entrance, and it was too hot to make the detour.  As I walked through a yard by some buildings a sign saying 'Bar' showed me 'someone' had made a mistake.  Cartographer, walker, it didn't matter.  The wooden bar area seemed full with only me in it.  I ordered a coffee and a sandwich off the manageress, who was at the same time brusque and friendly, then sat down to see how much nearer I could get to Aneto.

The door opened and a young couple walked in: a tall blond man and his girlfriend.  They dismantled their gear and ordered sandwiches. Company.  After short introductions I ordered 3 beers and we were soon comparing conquests, planning peaks, and talking turkey, well vultures.  Martin was an ornithologist, Barbora an architect. After an hour we were old friends.  Martin had two more of these half baguette bocadillos, they were very tasty and complimented the beer so well there was a risk of the day stopping there.  I think if anyone else had of joined us a would be writing a different story.

Starter + main course

Wild Camp to Refugio d'Anglos

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I covered about 11 miles to get to this lake and the cabana below, not bad when the average gradient is 50 degrees.  After a windy night, a quick breakfast, and a look at the map I was off up valleys that looked like Clint Eastwood would be at home in them.  Then as a pattern emerged in this new life I felt the comfort from understanding it.  The morning marmot's call; the bells on cows, sheep and goats; the night wind, the walking; meeting people; pitching camp; This was what I did now.  The beautiful views seemed to permeate your being and make you feel good.  I was looking forward to coming back and doing the whole East to West route, without the time pressure I was under now.
I thanked my instinct for checking me when I accidently started to go down the H.R.P (High Route Pyr.).  Then stopped by a lake and had a breather.  Next to me was a projecting rock about 30 metres high whose fancy  patterned rock face made it look like a city designed by Escher. (my battery was flat)

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This was the view down to the lake on which stood Refuge dera Restanca an earlier refuge which hugged the side of this reservoir with menace.  It looked not unlike a place of containment during a certain war and from which men escaped only temporarily.

In fact I had met a lovely German father and his son who gave it a bad review earlier, when I finally saw it I was aware of the irony.  

I wasn't tempted to take a bed here, even though I met up with quite a number of walkers that I recognised from the long days trekking.  An Englishman called Alex, who'd been at the garage with me and the 3 Poles, was there and I chatted to him for a while.  His eyes flickered about as though something was restless inside him (Oh had I been there!). I left him and the happy Spanish couples and crossed the dam to pick up the GR11.

A girl was making notes sitting on a wall overlooking the water and getting away from the throng getting ready to chow down at the refuge.  I'd managed to get a shower there and felt champion.  Some dip in the mountains awaited my tent.

Wild camp -

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”

John Steinbeck

http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees (Go on, that picture's worth £4.00!)
This picture comes as close as any that I took to actually capturing the view from inside my eyes!
I never, nor would ever, get sick of looking at the beautiful mountain tarns [estanys in the Catalan].  They kept me company when the grasshoppers deserted me and the butterflies found pretty flowers to distract them, the lakes were not so fickle.
I walked up into the sun with the sound of planes passing over and marmots calling, looking back I was surprised by how quickly the site of my wild-camp got smaller and smaller. I was gaining height quicker I told myself.  Looking down constantly to place your feet without breaking an ankle could mean you missed choice views and I had to pull my self out of rock-crunch reveries often to take in a new vista.

At the top of the coll 'Port de Ratera' such a panorama of lakes opened up and I shared their beauty with other people who were up and about and had stayed at the nearby Refugio d'Amitges.  They smelled sweetly of soap and deodorant that my feral nostrils hoovered up in passing.  'Holas' all round with the odd 'bueno' thrown in.  By the next lake two men came into view as I was taking this panoramic picture:

They were two Frenchmen from  Bagneres du Luchon coming to catch some trout, or try to!  One of them told me there weren't many left and we had an amusing 5 minutes getting cormorants and eagles mixed up and feeling our way to the French word for trout as I tweaked my vowel sound until his stone face finally lit into recognition.  This sort of exchange would invariably engage my tear ducts, the poor fish! (joke!)
My tent up; the stove on; home in an instant, spag bol, a cup of tea and a biscuit, turn in to write some notes, but being on a stair thingy at the gym for 10 hours is not going to hold back sleep from my body once it's prone! The wind, though is a different matter.