The Pyrenees, Spain – Writing With My Mouth Full

Trekking the Pyrenees, Catalan Style

You came from New York City to get lost here?!, the lady at one of the refuges exclaimed when we told her where we came from. “Here” was the Pyrenees on the Catalan side, six hours from Barcelona by bus through the town of Vielha, and “lost” were two amateur hikers in the middle of the mountains, cold, soaking wet, scared and panicked about sundown.

Our adventure in the Pyrenees started four years ago, when we read about Carros de Foc, a company in Spain that established a route to connect the nine existing refuges in and around AigÃ¼estortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park. Each stop at a refuge earns you a stamp
on your “forfait,” or hiking passport, and ten–the last one is the same as the first, which completes your loop–earns you a T-shirt exclusively given to those who finish the trek. At first, it was all about the T-shirt, but as we ascended over granite after granite in the rain and descended down slippery trails in the snow, our goal became more simple: to live with ourselves shamelessly afterward.

Aiguestortes means “twisted waters” in Catalan. Every hike up gave us clear lakes and ponds to look at. Every trek down showed us waterfalls coming out of every crevice. We had never seen anything more beautiful in our lives.

If it weren’t for the hail striking our faces, the wind pushing us back and the snow freezing our hands, we would stop and enjoy the view. There were days when the sun came out blazing, and those were the days we enjoyed the most, even with our 25-pound backpacks. But the most rewarding were those we spent wet and miserable on the trail, finding our way to the refuge we were scheduled to spend the night in after eight hours of hiking, coffee with brandy waiting to warm our bodies and our hearts.

It was definitely the most emotional and the most physically grueling trip we’ve ever taken together. Nothing could have prepared us from trekking the Pyrenees, Catalan style.

Day 7: Surviving the Catalan Pyrenees

Our cameras were packed for our trek back to Restanca. We were in a hurry, not only to finish our hike and get the T-shirt we’ve been working our aSses for the last seven days, but we also had to catch the last bus back to Barcelona at 1pm. When we woke up at Ventosa the next morning, it was snowing. We trudged in the snow on the lookout for trail markers. Most of them were already buried in white, but we persevered even though the Dr. was bleeding from the chafing of his wet pants to his knees.

At Restanca, we received our tenth and last stamp on our forfait. One of the staff members handed us our T-shirts without any fanfare. I didn’t even care that the only size available was an extra large. We got out of there with fire in our pants and hiked for another hour to catch the cab waiting at the foot of the mountain that took us to the bus station.

Video diary, day 7: Surviving the Catalan Pyrenees

Aboard the six-hour bus ride back to the city, the Dr. and I would occasionally look at each other in disbelief. What were we doing for seven days in the mountains? Did we really get lost twice? What would have happened if we didn’t serendipitously find the house of the Long Island man? What if we didn’t get out of the forked road to Estanc Llong?

We had three days left on our vacation to contemplate all those questions. At the moment, Barcelona and civilization were waiting.

Day 6: From Llong to Ventosa i Calvell

We left Estanc Llong with a group of women, one of whom was a Canadian expat who spoke to us in English. She invited us to hike down the mountain with them where we grabbed a 4×4 to the opening of the trail to Ventosa i Calvell. Was it cheating? We didn’t think so. If the park ranger told us to take the shortcut to Blanc, we can take the shortcut to Ventosa. The hike was almost three hours from the visitors’ station up to mountains anyway. On our sixth day, we just wanted to finish our trek and make our way back to Barcelona.

After we separated from the women, the hike to Ventosa was chilly but pleasant. When we made it to the refuge, we saw snow on the mountains. We had the entire afternoon to rest, and we knew we needed it because the next day involved trekking back to our starting point at Restanca, going down the mountain, and making the 1pm bus back to Barcelona.

Video diary, day 6: Hiking to Ventosa i Calvell, snow in September

Day 5: From Colomina to Estanc Llong

The German couple at Colomina decided not to go ahead to Estanc Llong on our fifth day. It was simply raining too much. We’ve gone so far even after our first setback, we decided to go for it after breakfast. Visibility was at zero and we had large rocks to cross. The rain erased the paths. We followed as much as we can see until we reached a fork on the trail. We spent at least three hours trying both ways and retracing our steps. It was hard to swallow and admit that we were lost for the second time during our hike.

We looked around us to see where we can sleep as soon as it got dark. There were no trees and no crevices in the rocks. We had a sleeping bag, but it was also wet because of the rain. As soon as we stopped on our tracks, we shook and froze–we knew we had to keep walking.

Video diary, day 5: Arriving at Estanc Llong after getting lost for eight hours

Back in Colomina, another young German couple just came from Estanc Llong. We remembered them telling us that the refuge was nestled among tall trees. Since we’ve tried every which way to get out of the mountains, we followed the Dr.’s instinct and walked along the trees, praying under our breaths that our next turn would be rewarded with a view of the refuge.

I cried as soon as I saw the roof of the refuge. We really thought that we had to sleep in the rain out in the mountains. There was a smaller group already preparing for dinner when we walked in. We were so relieved to see other people again. During dinner, the only English-speaking hiker told us she was an expat from Canada. She invited us to hike down the mountain with her group, where we would catch another 4×4 with them and we would continue to our next stop, Ventosa i Calvell.

Day 4: From Blanc to Colomina

From Josep M Blanc to Colomina, the fog was thick and the rain steady. A young German couple we met at Blanc were going the same way. The girl was wearing a bright yellow covering on her backpack and we followed it to make sure we were going the right way. When we arrived in Colomina, we ended up eating dinner with them. They told us that they kept looking back during the hike to look for us. They were looking for us to make sure they were going the right way!

Video diary, day 4: Rain and wind to Colomina

Video diary, day 4: Arriving at Colomina

The refuge at Colomina was held down by giant steel cables. I couldn’t sleep that night, not just because it was cold in the bedroom, but because the wind was howling so fiercely I was afraid the roof was going to come off.