4Peakscharitychallenge

Bagnere du Luchon - Tarbes Ussun Lourdes Airport.

2010-10-11T17:24:00.025+01:00

“Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” – William Faulkner

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A short walk took me into Bagnere du Luchon and its pleasant tree lined streets. Twinned with Harrogate, it shares that towns propensity to cure ills with sulphurous hot waters. Its architecture too is the French equivalent of Victorian (Loubetian?). I picked out a table in front of cafe and ordered a coffee, dusting off my French and flirting outrageously with the young waitress. At the train station I stood in a small queue that diminished slower than plutonium while I gleaned from snatches of French conversation that there was no train any-time soon.

This didn't surprise or worry me but an English couple I'd met at the camp-site earlier were well put out as it meant them missing their flight from Toulouse to Geneva. They took a taxi while I decided to hitch, but before that I found a delightful little patisserie in an ex petrol station where I stoked myself with carbohydrates and caffeine, wrote notes and watched para-gliders sail effortlessly across the skies.

A chef gave me a lift to the station I wanted and a train took me to Tarbes. Another train took me to Lourdes and I camped there just out of town in a camp-site. I listened to the manager row with his father in law as his wife trudged round the pool with their 3 year old son. Something seemed to be missing, like in those weird French films of the sixties. I ate saussison and bread, drank red wine and felt the sun on my face.

What was I doing there? I've no idea! I walked out towards Ossun in the morning dipping a toe only into the bizarre town that exploits hope in sick people and stopped for a quick coffee at a hotel on the way out. The waitress had a pigeon chest and face that looked like it had never worn a smile. It saddened me. Lourdes! After another half an hour's walk I reached the plane tree in the picture above. It shaded an extended family of Italians all enjoying their Sunday lunch, it would be rude, I thought, not to join them and take advantage of the pleasant setting to have my last meal of the trip.

The waitress explained my options, it seemed cheapest to eat the most so I did. The buffet was an extensive array of little French culinary gems: artichoke hearts, quails eggs, garlicked mushrooms.....followed by steak and chips and the wine was local and delicious.
The waitress had lived in London and seemed faintly amused to hear about my strenuous foray into the Pyrenees on a solo mission to raise money for a children's farm, "Those Inglish" I could hear her zink "zay are farming children now! Zut alors!" Her name was Marie-Ange and she offered to give me a lift to the camp-site near the airport. She decided(!) the site was too far from the airport so we drove there to see if there were any hotels. Not one! So after looking cynically at the grass verges and wondering aloud if I'd like to camp there, Marie-Ange mooted the splendidly generous idea of me staying in her modernised seventeenth century farmhouse, with a lift to the airport thrown in!
The ancient wooden gates opened into a beautifully rustic gravel courtyard across which bounded a collie, still getting to grips with the significance of its own body mass index. A golden coloured cat completed the welcome party, allowing me to stroke it before stealing off with one of those over the shoulder Machiavellian stares Eastern cats seem born to.
I'm sure the sun winked at me through the massive fig trees that dominated the garden, heavy with fruit that would accompany the black coffee and croissants at breakfast.

I felt honoured to be introduced to Marie-Ange's family at the farm above. The cows there were hand milked and the horses rescued from somewhere, the pigs were a lesson in close living and the geese were hilarious, like a teenage gang running around bullying anything that got close, now a stray dog, now me! Her niece milked the cows and I was offered a cup full of warm milk, would I wretch at it as I had 45 years ago when trying to swallow warm milk from a half pint bottle at primary school or had the mountains taught me something?

The milk went down, stayed down, all eyes on me were rewarded by an enthusiastic smacking of the lips and a beam of approval.

Marie-Ange cooked a charming meal back at her house and we were joined by her sons, getting ready for University life in nearby Carcassonne.

She was a wonderful host and my first chance to realise how subtle but significant the change in me was after my walk in the Pyrenees.

More importantly the walk has raised over £700.00 for the Adventure Farm Trust in Cheshire which helps terminally ill children get distracted from their fate.

At the airport below I celebrated the successful mission with a beer!
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Benasque - Bagneres du Luchon

2010-10-04T16:40:00.008+01:00

"Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up."
Ernest Hemingway

The lengths Eñaut would go to for a pint!

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The bus didn't leave for another 10 minutes. There was only me on it. I thought about this climbing walk coming to an end. I thought about how many beautiful images I had stored up in my head, and how much use I could make of them when I got back to the sometimes grey, sometimes rainy Manchester.

Being on a bus felt strange, it was going to take me to Benasque where I assumed the modern European transport system would whisk me off to Lourdes, plane and England so quickly that I would suffer the cultural equivalent of the bends.

I felt for the perplexing pouches under my eyes, that had formed overnight, they had gone. I learnt later that it was caused by the rapid descent yesterday (Thanks Hazel). The bus moved off and I enjoyed the view out of the window. As we wound round the bumpy mountain-hugging road the man behind the wheel told me that I might want to get off at the junction ahead as he was going to Benasque d'Hospitelet first (a border point near France). I looked at my map and saw that where he dropped me was still on the GR11 and I could follow that into Benasque.

The path wove through roads and camp-sites, forests and reservoirs, bridges and meadows. I stopped by a river and lit my stove for a last 'wild' cup of tea, burning up the last of my alcohol, having a last moment of quiet before reaching the town. Beautiful blue wild flowers welcomed me into Benasque. The girls in the tourist office were very helpful but the bus timetable suggested travelling to Lleida, to pick up a coach to Toulouse and it was all going to take days! They suggested the agencia viaje (travel agent) where I was able to charge my phone in the back of a computer, but the agent had no suggestions for getting to France that didn't involve going to Barcelona first, he pointed to the tourist office. Back there I explored the option of walking into France, a phone call was made to the manageress' friend; some hours between points were relayed; it was settled, I'd get back on the bus I'd got off that morning and go to Hospitalet de Benasque and walk over to Abri de la Hospice de France. Those of you whose IQ is greater than their shoe size might be wandering why I didn't figure that out for myself! Well I did, but wild horses weren't going to stop me coming in to Benasque for a jamon y queso bocadillo, beer, fresh fruit and coffee! Not to mention recharging my phone. A Frenchman on the mountain had told me I could get a bus from here! And I certainly would have. The decision to walk wasn't a disappointment, though it might have been 2 weeks earlier.

Back on top just before the French border.

One foot in France

Walking up to the border at Portillon de Benasque I met a farmer taking his cows down, he pointed the way out to me with his gnarled stick. His dogs meandered about sniffing things including the cows who phlegmatically lumbered down the well worn path like grannies. The way was marked clearly but the HRP bore off near here and I liked talking to strangers.

Before I met Hurve (ooervay) who took the picture of me with one foot in France, I'd managed to scramble up Pic de Sauvegarde (2738m) 'because it was there'.

Hurve was a mountain runner, as slim as a biscuit, something over six foot and neatly turned out. I followed him up to the col a touch worried, not knowing how steep the gradient would be, that I may have to chalk up my fingers and do a little crevice work.

Luckily there was no verticals and we arrived at Refuge de Venasque after negotiating a path we shared with a flock of homesick sheep. After all the peering down chasms I'd done I didn't want to suffer the ignominy of being head-butted into a tarn by a hormonal French ewe!

The Refuge was very inviting and I stopped there just to have a coffee with Hurve. It had been such a long day: waking up with swollen eyes; a bumpy bus ride; a calm walk into town; the joy of food and celebration of beer, another bus ride, more climbing, saying hello to France and rain; goodbye to sunshine and Spain.

After leaving the refuge I descended into thicker cloud and the rain increased. It didn't alter my mood though, it was just the weather.

Down an uncertain path, back and forth across a river, sheep bleating, their bells' dissonance, fatigue creeping through me, it couldn't be much further, could it?

It was, and though tired when I reached the Hospice de France, I looked through its windows and saw few people spread around a formica based canteen, no log fire, no clashing of froth topped flagons, no serving wenches, no, it was only 5 miles to Bagnere I'd carry on.

Walking along that road was not the same glorious experience that mountains offer and my feet soon alchemied into lead, my rucksack now wet was and felt heavier and my hat was now so sodden that it allowed through the odd drop of rain to cool my neck.

Eventually not far from Bagnere I came to a car park at the back of which was a Gite of some description.

I walked in through the open door from the dark and called out "allo". I nearly said it twice but presumed the joke wouldn't travel and I didn't feel very funny. A woman's voice was talking into a telephone in the first room and so I pushed the door open softly. The lady had finished on the phone and looked at the big, dark, wet, hatted stranger as he struggled through his fatigue to remember what language to speak in. "Bonsoir" I offered and then: "do you ave a rrroom for tonight". Of course she didn't, it was home to any amount of children on summer camp, so while she hunted for the panic button I made myself scare, chuckling to myself on my way back to the humourless highway, into the spray of tankers and the insecurity of an unbooked hotel room.

Another mile and I came to a camp site. The office was shut so I picked a spot and pitched my tent. Made a sandwich, drank water and lay down listening to the sound of happy teenagers until very quickly the sandman cometh...

Ballhiverna down to the refugio Colomers

2010-10-02T01:24:00.000+01:00

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Everything had been so plain sailing that I felt spoilt again by the success of my four peaks and the end of my adventure. The top of Ballhivernas was the hardest to obtain though, and I almost closed my eyes in order not to spook myself with peripheral glances at the immediate chasm that opened down to my left. The peak was 3062m while the valley floor was at about 1300m. The diagram above is uncannily accurate, except the tarn at '3' was in the next valley above '9' which is where the dotted red line on my map told me to go. The Spanish couple had wandered around looking for a way down as bemused as I was by the apparent lack of an obvious descent route. Then they disappeared from view and I was alone. I saw them later heading north 50 meters apart making their way slowly down some grey scree. Not happily!

The path I followed must have been used last in the 1930's by some Hemmingway character sneaking arms into Spain, listening for tolling bells and ricocheting bullets, perhaps to a Hoagy Carmichael melody.

Back in the here and now I found footsteps, just one set, (no, not my own) that headed round the bowl of scree that fell into a small and very rusty looking tarn. I followed them sensing that it was one way and going back in this heat, up this terrain, would be too difficult later to even bear thinking about. But I trusted myself to cope with whatever lay ahead and that was a seminal moment for me. I didn't feel brave and I wasn't scared. Far away on the other side of the valley I could see the lake where I should have met Martin and Barbora.

Martin on Aneto

Trees in the valley below looked minute but I had to ignore that, it confused my understanding of how I would get down! The rocks in my hanging valley were as irregular as in the picture of Aneto above, I stumbled round to the top of the waterfall that was fed by the rusty tarn. I climbed down it crossing over it occasionally It seemed easy and I kept going to the bottom of it when it disappeared into the mountain and I was on another lower hanging valley floor. Looking up the waterfall I was amazed, wishing I had power in my camera phone to record it, I was at the bottom of a 30 meter waterfall with my just my 13 kilo bag, some chocolate and all the water I could drink. I still had a long way to go but staying near the river seemed to provide the best access to lowerness and I descended steadily. Sometimes I had to rock-climb down dry waterfalls which was fun, each new ledge had more flora until gradually I arrived at the tree line and approached the valley floor. A marmot stuck his head up from his earth mound and considered me for a while. I should have headed for the river and got over it before it became a gorge but I had a suspicion I could reach the cabana on this side and meandered down through pine-tree graveyards and cattle filled meadows following carefully built cairns until after crossing a wooden bridge a track led me to the refugio Colomers.

What a disappointment! Not a guarded sanctuary with all the benefits introduced by the Romans over the centuries, sewage, hot water, electricity etc but full of similarly worn out trekkers having just conquered Aneto or preparing to.

I dumped my bag and asked a young Czech the time, it was 8.00pm. another 12 hour day. The young man was one of three brothers, he'd twisted his ankle and they were all waiting for it to heel. They gave me an enormous mug of tea and set about making another one. I was more than grateful. There was a bus stop near by which I walked over to and learned I could get a bus in the morning to Benasque. Naively I believed this large town would be able to connect me to France and Lourdes airport, eh huh, no sir!

I ate my last dried boef bourginon with water from the Czech kettle and crept into my tent at about 9.30.

In the morning I woke up and could hardly open my eyes! Conjunctivitis? Mosquito bite? Who knows, but when the swelling had gone down enough for me to see out of them I noticed a coach standing with its engine chewing diesel! Bugger not 8.00 o'clock then, 7.00! Anxiety, only yesterday a hazy memory, leapt back into my life and oversaw a hasty rucksack packing and ginger skip over to the quivering footplate under a closing door......

Pics de Vallhiverna (Picos de Ballibierna)

2010-09-28T14:29:00.003+01:00

“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

2010-09-24T21:00:00.003+01:00

Jump on this link to see how it started!
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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.

2010-09-24T00:46:00.000+01:00

“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.

2010-09-23T19:01:00.001+01:00

“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.

2010-09-22T18:33:00.009+01:00

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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

2010-09-19T21:33:00.001+01:00

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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 -

2010-09-16T18:29:00.107+01:00

“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.

wild camp - wild camp

2010-09-16T00:08:00.001+01:00

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Click on the above link for more information! (£4.00- the price of a pint! {in London})

My own father, though I always called him dad, told me once that I was spoilt. My father was always right, so my mother once told me, yes me mum. I heard him, as the old Hebrew adage has it, but I wasn't listening. I had dreamt up this little challenge to raise money for The Children's Adventure Farm Trust, (the link up there) and thinking about that end kept me going through climbing hundreds of metres a day, often over such difficult terrain and at an altitude I was ill accustomed to, that I would put that simple thought in my head "just do it," and maybe, I thought, the suffering will offset that spoilt-ness me pop was referring to. Plus the kids get a few quid for donkey nuts, Win: win.
I would sit on a rock - getting my breath back- look across at a lake and say - nothing.

Up that morning after a blustery katabatic nights sleep. It's easy! Tent and stuff away and on the path in half an hour wash my face in the stream and look for a rabbit for lunch. Not quite, but oddly that morning, while walking up the track to get out of the valley I was in, I noticed a pool of urine and a lot of dug up stones all the way up the path and wondered what it could have been snacking so close to my tent last night!

Were they the little cloven feet of small deer? Pyrenean badger? Spanish wallaby? I didn't know but it gave me some food for thought that morning in between careful map reading. There were lots of lakes and lots of paths around them. I was headed for the refuge at the back of the lake above for a morning coffee with a view.

Looking back down the valley I camped in.

Mystery solved? A Marmota

Espot - wild camp

2010-09-14T02:53:00.002+01:00

The mountains above Lake Maurici.
The three intrepid Poles and I marched up that hot winding road, feeling the sweat dripping down our necks for well over 7 minutes before we spotted some shade under trees to our left. Kris and I stepped into it and released the straps on our rucksacks. We breathed deeply. The others weren't far behind and we started up the hill again. These guys were brave, their rucksacks weighed at least half as much again as mine! On the left before long, the drive into a camp-site appeared and we trooped down it in file like we'd made a wrong turn in Afghanistan.
Heaving our bodies round like pregnant cattle we dumped our bags and took a table outside, a tray arrived and the girl under it smiled as she helped the four cold glasses of beer down to the table in front of us, it was Ice Cold in Alex all over again: the droplets of condensation slowly sliding down the glasses and us inspecting them before ceremoniously raising them and like the 4 Musketeerskis in unison we called cheers! na zdrowie!
Before long we stamped into Espot where we were welcomed by a convocation of white landrover defenders. there must have been 50 of them lined up and a dozen more driving slowly around the quaint little town. It was the start of the Parc National d' Aiguestortes

We found a little shop and re-provisioned, tomatoes, peaches cheese and chocolate, something to drink than the four of sat in the shade of this tree and put the world to rights. The little things!!

After half an hour of winding up the road and then bearing off through coppiced hazelnut trees, I wished them luck and pulled ahead, I wanted to get through the park and wild camp up on the ridge Port de Ratera before nightfall.

The lake in the middle of the park was beautiful and I met a lovely mother and daughter from Israel, Avivula and the daughter was called the Hebrew for Bambi, which I forget now. I tried to show the mother how to operate my camera/phone in panoramic but after take-three Bambi (12) had to do it! Like a true Jewish mother in no time she was worried about me:"you're on your own!!" "what if something happens to you!" "he's got a phone mother!!" "but I can't a get signal, can you get a signal, already!" so with these warm sentiments muffling the humanity in me and pulling the tears to my eyes I left them to join up with their kite flying men while I threaded past this waterfall to gain the open ground of my camp that night, wherever it might be.

The Waterfall.:
Avivala : Wild Camp:

Tavascan - Llavorsi - Espot

2010-09-12T22:24:00.004+01:00

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I past this cabana and thought how much more of this old rustic Pyrenees I had expected to find. Dropping into Tavascan finally across its beautiful mountain river, I saw a village which had obviously benefited from good times. Not that it had expanded much, it was definitely a one horse town. With just three big hotels, a shop and a tourist centre (shut of course).

Having had no rest-day, on top of seasonable heat and having just finished an eight hour walk, I couldn't think very clearly, or rather it meant I couldn't think economically, or perhaps not very brightly. In any event I sat down outside a hotel under a big red coca-cola umbrella and asked the emerging waiter for a menu. "We have tables prepared inside" he told me with a little condescension. Though part of me thought Kwai Chang Cain might not be who you wanted sitting outside your hotel. I persevered until the wind, the plastic, and the tiredness all conspired to relocate me within.

Breakfast at Llavorsi

Ask me about staying at that hotel it's too long a story! and people want pictures.. so I missed the lift I'd been promised at 7.00 that morning after the three course meal and bottle of wine and a few beers...never mind, my body was recharged after 12 hours sleep, my mind was recharged after 12 hours sleep and my phone was recharged after 12 hours stuck in the back of the managers computer. I stuck my recharged thumb into the road and hitched for the first time in ooh I don't remember..3 weeks! (only joking) probably 25 years. The first time I ever hitched was home from school because I'd missed the bus. I was too shy to ask the secretary for the bus fare so I went to the King's Arms roundabout in Wilmslow and stuck my thumb out. A brand new Jenson Interceptor (google it girls) stopped and took me to my door! I remember the G force created by the 16 cylinders -wow! I remember too (but vaguely) him warning me against hitch hiking again. I still get a Christm...

Yes the first vehicle that came into sight stopped. I got out of its way thinking it about to collect something and the driver waved me up, oh boy, a big green Tonka toy! He was going to Llavorsi, with a detour, and off we went emptying all the glass bottle recycling bins on the way. He was a lovely man, from Chile, from a suburb of Santiago but I didn't remember it. We had a great chat and he dropped right outside the colourful fresh fruit market in Llavorsi. I bought a little bag of those cute tiny pears, a couple of ripe peaches and a couple of beef tomatoes. Ask anyone who wild-camps what it is they miss most and I'm sure they'll offer back "fresh fruit".

On the bridge over the river I ate my peaches, luxuriating in there sensual ripeness, sucking the juice out of them and feeling their soft flesh slip down my hot throat, ahh (6 days in the mountain!). I looked at the water level in the river and wondered how they managed to white water raft in it!

A small shop sold me some nail clippers and a postcard for the tennis club then I went next door to a cafe(above) for a sandwich and coffee.(below)

Now the girl in the shop was telling 3 Polish guys that there was no bus to Esterri d'aneu I saw them scratching their heads at the timetable and they saw me doffing my hat at them and walking into the cafe,(I'd already told them that my Chilean friend had said there was a bus) which was my highest priority. I love to people watch, drink the great coffee eat the big sandwiches and use...you guessed it!

Remember me telling you before, no-one knows, so they tell you anything!

Chris, one of the Poles, came in to tell me there was a bus at half past ten. I was still making my mind up about directions.

At half past we four jumped on the bus, the plan to go to Espot and pick up the GR11 and Aneto.

As you can see it was a very hot day and we stopped often to take advantage of the shade. But look closely my bag now weighs just over 12 kilos, theirs weighed nearly 18!! I know they were well built but!
Between them they had everything, pots, pans, kettles, mugs, food. I was still happy lighter and I'd given my sticks to one of those girls from Hereford. Yet here I was with three walking Poles!!

Here we stand in front of an old Jail-house,

Three great hombres with stories to tell that made me cry, we are so spoiled over here that even if we know it, or think we know it, we don't know it, we don't know it!

I take my hat off to you three men of Poland

Baborte - Egyptian Vultures - Taverscan

2010-09-12T18:46:00.000+01:00

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Well bless my cotton socks, not a lammegeierbut an Egyptian vulture

At one point I saw 20 of these little rascals swirling on the thermals above me, which was a sight indeed. If you're not a twitcher, apologies but that place up on the Pyrenees gave me one of the best feelings ever. Alone on top of the world in perfect weather, trust me, I'm going back there sometime soon. All around me I could see peaks with wisps of clouds winding through them. And! oh joy!! I was at the highest point of the day and it was only 9.30! The hard work yesterday had paid off.

Flat grass to walk on! more joy! I've got to hand it to my feet, they stood up well to the constant pounding.
The only downside to this perfect day was that I had run out of water, still there would be plenty of streams when I dropped below the top.
These were the rocks the path went over. The white marker replaced the red and white one because this wasn't the GR11 I'd been following up to now. It was a short cut Augusti had told me about - a little local knowledge!

I found water after I dropped over the edge, but it was a very hot day, a great day, I must have been 2 kilos lighter and I'd sent 2 kilos home! Put 4 bags of sugar in a Tesco bag, and see how much it is, oh boy! As I walked along the grasshoppers danced about my feet in welcome, the butterflies prettied themselves up, the vultures swung left and right and put distance between us effortlessly. So today my theme was down, down crossing streams and weaving down between ancient hazel coppices, down through young birch trees and rowan. Down to Taviscan an altar to tourism where the place to gorge my mountain appetite lay and the bar to quench a fathomless thirst stood. Down.

Back to Refugio de Vallferrera- Refuge Baborte.

2010-09-12T01:31:00.006+01:00

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Behind the glacier.

I remember taking this video and being acutely aware of the quantum leap between what I wanted to do, and what I could do. That night I had "hardly slept a wink" Cymbeline Act111 s111
At 6.30 the next morning though, a little stiff, all ills were forgotten and a 3k walk down the valley as the sun seeped over its edges was the perfect cure.
Augusti was busy in the kitchen with his Catalan girl Friday, Mar. I ordered a breakfast and immediately regretted it when a saw the plate of plastic wrapped French toast and plastic tubs of confiture.
The coffee was superb though and the shower superber! It was just a shame Mar was busy in the kitchen. (4 days in the mountains now).
Outside the chair under the shade of a birch tree beckoned. There I sat watching the comings and goings for four hours, while my clothes dried and my limbs rested. Eight girls from a girls school from Hereford trooped in and set up camp, well kitchen, and chomped their way through an hour, sprinkling their girlish giggles about and slightly disturbing Augusti's equilibrium.

Though this looks like the sun rising that morning it's actually later that day setting behind me as I rise up to Refuge de Baborte. I had only wanted to push on in the afternoon and get a head start on tomorrow. Impossible here though. The river in the valley floor by the last refugio was at about 1600m, Balborte was at 2500! 900m over 4k. 2k of which went with the contour just up from the river. Up and up and up through trees and trees and trees.

At last, puffing and panting, I came to this cabana, set on this ledge in the hillside, I was tempted to stop, but wanted to get the bulk of the climbing out of the way so that I could enjoy mostly going downhill tomorrow. Another hour and I stepped into the sight-line of a beautiful tarn sitting under the muñoa that had the refugio on it.

You can just see it middle-right of the picture. Still an hour away!
It was about half-eight when I got there. Outside were a Spanish couple chatting, inside two older spanish men were sitting down to eat. The little table in there was candle lit and food and wine was flowing. One of them went through an over-elaborate explanation of which beds were free: "this one is free" he said slapping his hand down on a bunk, "this one is not free" etc. quite bizarre I thought. Perhaps I looked a little Cretinous, I had sure drunk plenty some of that mountain spring water, yes sir, I had!
I set up my little stove outside and boiled my water, and ate my silver bag of stodge and drank my vanilla tea and looked out over the lake in the dying of the light:

Those two 'viejos' (old men) looked like they'd been living there for years. I asked them before I left in the morning how long they had been living there, "2 nights" they told me.

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Pic d'Estats - Captain Domingo

2010-09-10T14:46:00.006+01:00

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It was noon when I arrived at Augusti's dominion and my first question to him was: "How long from here to the top of Pic d'Estats and back?" He looked at his watch as people sometimes do that want to gain a minute or two, 5 hours up: 5 hours back he told me. Many people think it should be quicker coming down, only on a sledge.

That's 10 hours, a full day's work and 2 hours overtime, but I wasn't in that world any more, now things were a lot simpler, as on the map (which is an awful disguiser of gradient), which showed the refugio, a path, a peak. So bouyed by my marathon of yesterday and blind to most logic, I stuck my rucksack in a locker and set off with but a dry bag holding some bread, cheese, chorizo, chocolate and a fleece in case it got chilly on the top. The going was steep at first up the side of a foothill until, over the top, it levelled out into a valley walk along a pleasant river, 5 hours! the guy was dreaming. It was 12.30 now, I looked forward to being back at the refugio by 8.30. So I bounded along looking around me for wildlife or signs of it and enjoying the quickly changing landscape as I moved up the valley and various geological features revealed themselves.

"..by the lonely tree and the sky.."

Lakes stay hidden until the last moment and they're all you can see. With no rucksack I felt I was making good headway, the sun and I tore into the afternoon and soon I was passing my second lake. There were plenty of people about, with tents ill-diguised among the massive rock domes in reds and blues. It was no irritation to me though and I carried on up occasionally chatting to walkers coming down. I knew from the map that it was possible to go directly from the col to the peak over a couple of other peaks as at Coma Pedrosa. It was a bit like asking Kasporov for tips on beating Karpov: what do you do with the advise?!

The time saved was one thing the doing it was another. When at about 5.30 I reached the col and looked at the rock jutting up like a petrified monkey puzzle tree, I could easily envisage myself being stuck either by a sudden and unexplained bout of vertigo, or just climbing into a dead end. So after giving it a go, having hidden my little bag in a crevice, I turned back found by bag and decided to go the conventional way.

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That meant going down the north side and across one glacier then behind another, not to mention a football field or two of rocky going. Then a climb of about 250 metres.
I should not confess to the fact that I was wearing (very comfortable) walking boots, that had seen service across 300k of the beautiful uplands that sit under Offa's Dyke on the Welsh/English border. Miendle are a good name too. But it had been spotted by the sharp eyed indigenes hereabouts that they lacked ankle support and good enough grip for snow fields wedged up agin' mountains. There were a number of amateur meteorologists up the mountain that day too, quite sure we were about to witness the perfect storm over Pic d'Estats. I had my spare fleece.
I was still an hour away from the peak...
There were not stairs and a handrail up this mountain, just itself. Rubbed into its sides were paths that were forged over the years by the volume of trekkers seeking to stick their neck above the pond of humanity and take a gasp of enlightenment before dropping back down to, hum drum ways.

Glacier

After gingerly traversing the above glacier; climbing over a little ridge; puffing and panting; walking behind another glacier; picking up the dear little red and white signs; looking up at the seemingly unattainable peak, sighing from exhaustion and a hint of impatience, I sat down on a rock and took a taste of my handy vitals and a sip of water. In truth, though, I wolfed every last morsel of yesterday's bread and shiny chorizo down, guzzled the water and tried to slow down long enough to be aware that it was chocolate finally reaching a welcome stomach.

Even though you know where the top is, there is a heck of a large apron of rock plantations beneath it. I put that little boulder coloured bag with my water bottle and extra fleece in it down among the bag coloured boulders, it wasn't easy going because in my excitement I'd come off the path and was just heading straight up. Tired, it was my second 3000metre peak in as many days, I looked for about 30 mins for it before I just stopped and asked myself where it was. then I looked up and looked straight at it 150 feet away near a snow triangle, I was amazed at the power of the sub-conscious, and happy to get my bag back.

On top I was emotional and elated, They sight of bottles of water left for anyone to avail themselves of was the trigger for a few tears then it was back down tout suite! I stopped to photograph a lovely couple of elderly French Basques from Bayonne, with their camera.
They spoke to each other in a very guttural dialect (like the fish in Stingray). I hurried back down the mountain delighted to see the moon putting in an appearance, storm! That guy was dreaming! I could keep walking if there was moonlight, but I wouldn't be back to the refuge until midnight. Now I was dreaming, I made it to the first valley lake before giving up and spotting the cabana hoping there was room in it for a tired chap from Manchester.
It was the size of a double-bed inside half of which was covered in soldier - Captain Domingo Al..... His head torch found me out as I knocked on the door and asked if there was a spare blanket. I didn't know the Spanish for it but saw two survival blankets stuffed into the rafters. Wrapped like a Christmas turkey I lay down next to him and tried to sleep. Rustling with every breath and turn, my knees yelped, my feet groaned my blood ran with adrenaline, over-tired and without a headrest sleep came only fitfully, Domingo gave me anti-inflammatory tablets and I finally hit the z road.

Eñaut gone - refugio de Vallfererra - Augusti

2010-09-09T02:04:00.047+01:00

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I was reminded of the old sayings about Siberia, though my age has knocked the corners off that memory (there's always someone who remembers it exactly! A right brainer, as the newspeak has it), anyway "In Siberia ten degrees is not a frost; a thousand miles is no distance:...er I can't remember the rest, but you get the picture. Perception adapts to the new topography and...oh yes "...a double vodka is no drink". I had to be more careful! Stuck in the rain out on the mountain, I was like this as a child, notably coming out of a Tarzan matinee, and later Superman, easily tricked into an optimism inappropriate to reality let's just say.

You can see from this little clip that I was fine on arrival at the cabana, Eñaut betrayed a soupçon of concern when I emerged out of the clear gloom, (yes even the gloom is clear in the mountains!) he introduced me to Gemma and Carla (with the soup), Tom the Paddy with an Oxford accent and Ian the dour Scot whose dour had faded and been replaced with Pyrenean verve. They busied themselves around their bunks, while I stood soaking up the ambiance of this wheel-less gypsy caravan perched on a muñon (little hill and Eñaut's surname),high in the Pyrenees. Held to the ground, ready to resist the worst, by steel guy-ropes an inch thick. I made a chorizo sandwich and offered it around but all were mellowed after there various repasts. I had walked up three Snowdons today and down one, down in the warm summer rain over rocks, shale and boulders like massive chunks of buffed up fudge, razor edged and sullen. Another peak was in the bag, Eñaut's wine peed out of his leather 'bota' bag straight down my throat and brought dreams I never remembered of nameless people in no places. Simple, sleep.

The morning sun lifted itself languidly over the southern peaks, We were the first out, washed in the stream and away down the path sketched out by the ubiquitous red and white marker. Marmotas were sending there high pitched calls out to meet their own echoes while the sound of cow bells muffled by the pines tumbled up the valley. We said goodbye: he thanked me for my moral support and I apologised for holding him back.

On my way down to this river, where I filled my bottle I asked some soap smelling, clean shaven, day trekkers if they'd seen him "40 minutes away" buiding up a fine head of steam! He'd told me that he was thinking of giving up, going home and restarting after dental work. Maybe having me around while he talked himself through it all, gave him the answer he wanted: The empty chair? This from an e-mail he sent me yesterday: "The day I left you, I completed the 43 km to Estaon, where I had the greatest and the best dinner of my life !"

I knew that feeling all right. I sat on a rock by the fork in the path where I'd gone north and he'd bounded west, I was close to Pic d'Estats, well, about five kilometres, five hours away from the peak. I sat on the rock with the sun on my face thinking about how enriching the last few days had been. A herd of cows jangled into earshot, behind me I heard them moving like a beast with forty-eight legs, I stayed still and didn't look at them, looking is a challenge, and sure enough they brushed past me like I wasn't there, one cow pushed her nose onto my bag (chocolate?) but they seemed to be following some pattern of behaviour and they didn't see me as a threat. How could they!

Refugio de Vallferrera

There were a few people milling around in and around the refugio. A strange mixture of tired people re-fuelling silently, and younger spirited sorts wanting answers to every thing: How much is this? What time does...? Where's a bin? oops never ask that, "You brought the rubbish, you take it away!" was always the harsh rejoinder to seemingly harmless inquisition.
Augusti, an engaging Catalan shepherd, was the guardian of this refuge. He wore a mullet with the aplomb of a German rock-star. One minute he was in the refugio next minute out of it, but wherever he was not far away was a little sheep dog that was so bonded to Augusti, and so oblivious of other human beings that I wondered at the method of puppy training used: welding needs heat!

Aran to 2nd peak Coma Pedrosa then Refugi de Baiau

2010-09-07T21:47:00.001+01:00

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"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!

Egyptian Vulture

Arans - two worlds

2010-09-07T19:36:00.000+01:00

"Solo wandering is often condemned, but no one may truly know the mountains till he has travelled alone among them the day long. Perceptions are cleaner, there is a fine sense of freedom, the idiosyncrasies of one's companions need no longer be studied"

B.H.Humble.

Eñaut had no discernible idiosyncrasies, that I troubled to study. Yes he smoked his roll-ups and sometimes with a little Moroccan (resin) in it. But, as he told me, the trauma of some childhood fear was allayed by it. Fear, I suggested was often a F.alse E.xpectations A.ppearing R.eal. I experienced fear in these mountains and argued myself out of it:

Eñaut was going to have a drink in the first bar he came to in Arans. The quick Basque fox would be writing his notes for the day while sipping an Estrella: El viejo cabra (the old goat) would be along presently. The dynamic between two walkers is no different to marriage, dating, and partnering someone at something or other, mutual respect and putting the needs of the other before your own. He went at his own pace but was happy to meet up later where there would be exchanges of information, a sharing of experiences...and beds! Well if Mr Haig can get away with it. We beat the landlord of these modern 5 star apartments down to 25euros each and reserved a table in the empty restaurant. We were the antithesis of the expected clientèle here: Two solo wanderers merging briefly for a little spiritual symbiosis, a beer and a meal. There was less character in that dining room than a blank sheet of paper but some how we helped our little corner break out from the starched sterility of the rest of the room where the waiter stood staring up at a television, plastic flowers managed to droop in shame, while our empty bottles and full glasses, our maps and charts, jokes and banter, beer and wine said less is more, more or less. While Eñaut sat on the balcony puffing his fears away, I broke the sofa-bed and we both retired exhausted, replete and content, looking forward to tomorrow and the worst climb of my life.

The pictures earlier of us both filling bottles at a well were taken the following morning when we assaulted a hill that would have challenged Sisyphus. So directly up was the path that our various fitness levels soon parted us. I would next see Eñaut in a cafe bending over a paginas amerillo looking for a local dentist in the next village.

A long day into another.

2010-09-07T10:16:00.000+01:00

http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyreneesTwo days after the above video they shovelled the first sods on his rough-sawn pine coffin....
I drank that clear spring water for two weeks, I'd still be drinking it now.
I kept up with Eñaut until the next big up. Then I waved him off, had a drink and watched the young German father and his even younger son and daughter skip ahead of me. Oh boy! Age! I overtook them and charged up the hill with purpose. Too fast, not pacing myself, my mind was always ahead of my body and I´d have to stop again and again. Puffing and panting like a glassblower. The German trio caught up with me again and we had a laugh at the absurdity of it. I told the story (briefly!) of the Hare and the Tortoise to his children and they giggled. On and up ahead of them I went again and again. At the top I took a long draught of water and some chocolate. I was careful to do this at the top because you needed all your concentration to get down without tripping amongst all the roots.
A Frenchman greeted me with his lively young (that word again!) Australian sheepdog called Fonz. A collie with streaks in its shaggy coat, an attractive dog and well natured. The not old Germans coming along were apprehensive of its gaiety so I grabbed it and prevented it bounding onto the son . The family went passed me again. I talked about his dog, but briefly, my spider senses were tingling, his muscles were a little too well defined, I turned to go and almost walked into his girlfriend, an Amazon of such exquisite femininity all the trees seemed to stiffen in her gaze. No spider I.

Back on the GR11- Eñaut

2010-09-06T09:47:00.000+01:00

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http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees
Before I got back on the GR11 I had to find a 'little' short cut that took me up to it. As I walked out of Canillo the mountains leant imposingly over me and the lorries pinioned me against them on the pathless road. Surely it would be obvious with the trusty white stripe over red marker, wouldn't it?
No, it was a tributary, so to speak, and was known only to, er or rather, not even by the locals. The beautiful people of Andorra, are so well meaning, and like the French and Spanish when addressed in their Catalan are most helpful. How was it that I had learnt to filter the misinformation they all gave me, until, like some Rolf Harris painting, I finally understood what it was yet! I believe it is partly the nervousness generated by speaking English, coupled with the desire to provide an answer at any cost. So they deliver an answer, confidently, out of the nearest random possibility that springs to mind. Some 'lost in translation' thrown in and we can see that there is no reason to malign these good people.
I found a local that matched this profile to some degree. The only resource available to me, it seemed, was a petrol station next to a disused cafe. Five metres of Russian roulette with juggernauts and I skipped into the forecourt and spotted the manager de-greasing his hands over a washbasin in the toilet.
"Por favor" I said and before I could utter another word he sprang into an emotive latin leap of excitement and exclaimed: "Senor! Chile, Chile, es mio! Recuerdo?!"

It was a few years since I'd been in Chile, sorting out my father's affairs after his death there, could this man really know me from there? Was it really such a small world after all?

No, before my eyes burst into pools of reunion, my subconscious directed me to the young Chilean lady that had served me in the Correo. He'd gone in after me and she'd shared the information with him that I was familiar with her home city of Valparaiso.
I liked the cut of his jib though. An engaging and comic event. Afterwards he hastily succumbed to the aforesaid syndrome and directed me to a path that would have had me enjoying the capital Pas de la Casa once more, my subconscious rescued me again by unwittingly blurting out the name Ordino, which it remembered from looking at a map earlier, (I faintly remember at breakfast looking at the map, amongst coffee cups, croissants, waitresses, etc.) "Ah si senor es alli" he said pointing to a path.

Back to walking then, I seem to put off doing even that which I enjoy. The task involved facing each gradient with equanimity, I knew that and was up to it. However it seems in my nature to dramatise the fresh onslaught as if I were heading into the Somme. One last coffee! One last letter home!

Eñaut (Enyah-oot)

I climbed up past a gaggle of Koreans fussing over some monument or other. Turned around past a resting farmhouse and up into the seemingly impenetrable undergrowth of a pine forest. Up and up and again up and up. The pine cones small and in profusion acted like ball-bearings, another hazard. At least I had the occasional tree to hang on to going round corners. Up and up, I wont overdo it as there was worse to come! I covered just over a kilometre in about an hour and a half and had gone through 27 closely knit 20 metre contour lines (540 metres!) To put it into context: half of Snowdon squashed into a steep hillside before elevenses.
At the top of this endless climb I met a young man called Eñaut , a Basque architect. He was wearing worn through jeans, a beard and a demeanour that spake volumes. He was doing the full east to west GR11 route, and it was clear that his trial was working its magic. {PETE GET OUT THERE!}
At the Coll d'Ordino we both shifted about among the various hedges, gates and fences looking for a sign that could unleash us again. Like a pair of hunting dogs trying to pick up a foxes trail.
Eñaut found it and we pelted down the trail, high on the endorphins from the climb.

Canillo - Rest and Relaxation.

2010-09-05T23:44:00.000+01:00

http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees
http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees
http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees

So, I'd had a beautiful lunch, found a camp-site, now trim another kilo off my pack: My tin mug, that could go, I could always drink out of my aluminium cooking pot and anyway drinking tea is a social affair and there was only me and myself in our team. My thermal vest, and knife and whistle (don't worry I had a smaller whistle in my lid pocket). I had a litre of cooking alcohol, I bought a lightweight drinking flask and decanted some in that then gave the remains to the camp-site receptionist. A pack of wipes went as did the gizmo to transfer photos onto a computer. A lighter and flint thingy went, (my matches were in a dry-sac). I nipped into the correo to post it home, again it was about its value in stamps to send, I flirted with the girl behind the counter and treated myself to a swim and iced-tea in the leisure centre which was the size of the Millennium Dome but without the 'look at me I'm not sure what I am' tag. This one held an Olympic sized swimming pool an ice rink, tennis courts, squash courts, crochet dens and much more.
I didn't know what tomorrow had in store but I'm so glad I continued the little indulgences to include a three course meal and a cheap hat.

The meal: salad, steak and chips, and a chocolate torte with ice-cream. A small carafe of red wine to wash it down with, then inside (see above) for a little rumination, a grande cafe solo and a Soberano (my favourite Spanish brandy). Tomorrow hell was coming!

Andorra-Pas de la Casa-Canillo..

2010-09-05T10:04:00.000+01:00

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The bus up to Pas de la Casa was not your average bus journey into Manchester, or was it? Well Manchester isn't duty free, so motivation was a key difference. One doesn't carry an empty rucksack and a passport to pick up a halter-neck top from Chelsea Girl! (Though you can pick up duty-free cigarettes and tobacco from most Manchester pubs - try Burnage for good Dutch rolling).
At the border a suitably officious looking Customs officer climbed on board, setting off a wave of rummaging for passports, particularly irritating for me whose passport was secreted away in a-I couldn't remember which- hidden compartment of my rucksack. It had to be hauled in and out of the corridor to let the officer on and the various (though I want to say nefarious) individuals off the bus, to catch up on their slow conversion into cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and emphysema, patients, that they looked like extras from a Howard Hawks film we'll put down to my, still to be tweaked by the mountain, imagination.
No-one was arrested. We arrived in the capital.
The photo above can't convey the feelings that were evoked in me by it. That is photography's shortcoming. That's why writing is such a perfect compliment to it. Have I changed the subject yet? No! Damn!
"Let not women's weapons, water-drops stain my man's cheeks!" King Lear.
Don't go near mountains then Lear!
Mountains should be classified as a class A drug. They have the power to remove the pattern of conformity that society demands of each of us and at the same time reinforce it: Up the mountain the paradox is realised. (Read the book for the elongated version of this: "J'arrive: Sobre la Cena." Gerrard Armor (Published 2043).
Behind me and opposite the chair lifts was the post office where I returned a Craghopper fleece, 5 litre kitchen sink, first aid kit and Mountainlife culottes back to my flat in Manchester. The cost of postage:17 euros, cost of goods: 17 euros, weight 1.5 kilos.
Behind the post office was a ferrot.. farroc.. feroca.. plumbers supplies shop. I popped in here to see if they had any tape for the package. The lady in the shop was Spanish. I bought an end role of gaffer tape for 1 euro. The tears this time were ones of joy. Suppressed nevertheless, joy at noticing the woman's relief in hearing me speak Spanish and my relief at being able to speak to someone, more fluently than my knowledge of French/Catalan, Spanish/Catalan, Portuguese or French for that matter had allowed so far. Everone's familiar with that look one gets following this exchange:
" Hi are you American?" "No, Canadian!"
" Hi are you Australian?" "No, New Zealander"
" Hi are you from Brighton?" "No, Hove (actually)"
Well Andorra will lure the most able diplomat into these faux pas (plural!).

Time for a photograph and to get away from people.

This ground hugging thistle (Carlina acaulis) was named after Charlemagne,who, on his way over the Pyrenees to thump the Arabic occupiers of Spain, had his army struck with the plague. An angel told him an arrow fired would land on the plant that could cure it. Barbora, friend of Martin, the Czech ornithologist I was soon to meet (and lose), told me that behind the flower head, rather like a globe artichoke is an edible disk, thus its nickname "Hunter's Bread", The rhizome too, like a cucumber and edible, contains an antibacterial carlina oxide.

I took a bus to Canillo, a little town still in Andorra, that would provide me with a good point to join up with the GR11 again and a good walk around to Coma Pedrosa the next mountain I'd climb.
When I arrived I went straight to the tourist office to double check where I could find the path, it was siesta so after several milliseconds of optionizing I took refuge from the midday heat under a parasol over a table that might be judged to be thoroughly naked if not offering support to either a glass of beer or some culinary repast deserving of a lonesome adventurer.

Ensalada con Queso de Cabra y Cerveza!!

Following this divine intervention, and forgetting about the Tourist Office, I teased myself that I couldn't get another kilo out of my rucksack and send it home, Oh couldn't I!

Gite d'etape @ Hospitalet pres-l'Andorre

2010-09-04T22:00:00.000+01:00

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So I left lakes, mountains, clouds, fresh air, marmotas, trout and wild garlic aside for a day at the behest of my back, whose chant, at first inaudible, grew steadily to such a pitch that I could barely hear the butterfly's wing tips flapping together, or dew forming, or mushrooms growing: "This rucksack is too heavy!" Mellifluous it wasn't but to the point, and my back deserved no less attention than any other part of me. I would go to Pas de la Casa and send some stuff home.

My trail ended at a road: a broad swathe of tarmacadam painted into the hillside before me, on it all sorts of crazy vehicles groaned up and down. Ducking left under a hedgerow I sought a quieter way into the village Porte Puymorens. There, as everywhere in France, the official language is French, but with the Andorran border a couple of miles one way and the Spanish one a couple of miles the other ( including a Spanish enclave around Llivia!), the doors squeaked in Catalan the dogs barked in Catalan and the pression poured in Catalan. Oh whatever revelation awaited me at the top of mountains- and there were a few! There was always 1664 or Estrella or other demi-god at the bottom of them. Mine stood before me on an iron table outside a characterful a French bar as you could wish for.

http://www.gitelhospitalite.com/
After a requisite amount of misinformation from a variety of self interested sources led me back to the barman as a possible locum travel agent, I discovered, quite to my surprise, that there was a railway station some 250 metres down the road and the next train to Hospitalet was in 30 minutes!
I blinked coming into the station and missed seeing the town centre. After alighting from the train with eyes wide open I nearly missed it again, not that I had great expectations, but the pressure of patterns tilted me towards the wrong assumptions! I soon found the Gite which was run by a lovely lady called Liliane and her husband Christian Loustau.
I met an affable veterinarian from Warrington there with his sweet girlfriend, a teacher from Chester.
"We're going to eat at the only restaurant open at the big hotel at the end of the road" they told me. Well, I planned to join them there, but by the time I'd ditched my sack and clothes by my bed, found my folding, and had run my fingers through my hair, the beastly restaurant manager announced in a fluster that there was to be no more service that night (at least that is what I thought he'd said!). This poor lonely 52 year old man stood for a moment trying to distinguish among the clientèle his animal lover (and the vet), hoping they would see him and wave him through the barrier of a business model that didn't hold any reverence for profit.
They may have been there or not I couldn't remember what they looked like, I turned, trying not to let on to my stomach that nothing enriching was coming, and sloped out of the hotel.
Back at the Gite I walked into a kitchen and there they were, also unworthy of a place at the last supper. We enjoyed sharing plates of pasta with goblets of red wine and swapping stories about the trail. I retired relishing the good company and attempted to sort out the excess gear that was going home soon.. Mr sandman's slick professionalism overtook me, however, and I awoke to a new and beautiful day.

Day Three

2010-09-03T17:50:00.000+01:00

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The next morning the sun sprang out from behind some distant ridge and, with the unheard cock crowing in another valley, dispelled all demons that might unsettle a lesser man. Up and decamped I waved farewell to the silent reservoir and nodded to the empty cows.
Leaving La Bollosa and heading north west along a valley floor I had a pretty easy time of it and could have called it a rest day but for the climb around the corner by the lake to drop onto Estany de Lanos, (Estany is Catalan for lake). Portella de la Grava the col was 2426 metres! The long lake along the valley floor with the free cabana nestled under the high ground by its north eastern edge was a sight to feast the eyes and dim the memories aching knees fought to reinforce.
It was too early in the day to think about settling down so, rested and watered, I headed along its southbank ending up through a confusion of signs running down the GR7 to Porte Puymorens.
Wait a minute, rewind..., the lake which twinkled with a thousand diamonds as a hot afternoon sun washed its persistent rays across its sapphire flanks, Scree falls looked like they were purposefully diving for her cool, fresh depths. The hills that backed her to the north still bore the scars of mining days while dotted about her skirts little gems of tents mocked camouflage like un-sucked boiled sweets in prime reds, yellows and blues. I stopped by a merry stream rushing to join the cool mother blue and filled my bottles, and filled my mouth, and throat and stomach with such fresh water it seemed to brighten my sight. My whole body and soul seemed to be joining the landscape, melting back into its simple ways.