Hiking in the Pyrenees

Travel and arrival - Monday, June 12th

We had a nice quiet night and caught a train into Barcelona. We were right on time at 10am meeting our friends Larry & Robin at the car rental agency. We had a nice catch up while we waited for our car to be ready and then we were on the road heading out of town by 11am. We stopped for lunch along the way (tasty pizza) and got to our Pyrenees hotel in Panticosa about 4pm. After brief unpacking we met downstairs in the bar.

We are on a hiking holiday with Colletts Mountain Holidays (https://www.colletts.co.uk). The package includes accommodation and 2 meals a day (small additional charge if we want a pack out lunch to take on our hikes) plus help with hiking itineraries. Each evening at 7pm everyone gathers to discuss the hikes that the staff will be leading the next day. The staff can also help people if they want to choose something different. Dinner afterwards includes a small first course, main dish, dessert, and wine.

We signed ourselves up for a fairly challenging hike tomorrow - 12.5 miles and more than 2600' of elevation gain (almost all in the first 2 miles). In Santa Cruz a hike with 1500’ of elevation gain would be considered a big deal.

Tuesday, June 13th

Breakfast buffet was nice but we couldn't leisure too much because we're heading out at 8:30 a.m. It turned out to be just the four of us signed up for this hike so our guide, Jack, rode with us. We had about an hour’s drive to the trailhead.

As we were warned, the uphill started almost immediately and for the first two hours that's all we did. Luckily this portion is all shaded. The view from the top across the canyon was fantastic. From there the hike started to gently lose elevation as we traversed the side of the canyon. We were mostly hiking through shaded forest and periodically got more fantastic views of distant mountains, the towering canyon wall opposite us and the valley floor below. 

Just a bit past halfway and we were on the valley floor at the back of the canyon. It's a nice time of year to be here because there is a lot of water in the river due to snow melt and the river and cascades are dramatic and beautiful. The first half of the walk along the valley floor was pretty and went alongside the river as it went charging and falling down the gorge. The last 2.5 miles in a birch forest was still pretty but we were too tired to appreciate it much. We got back to the car at 6:00 p.m. so overall we were out for 8 hours. Larry's tracker program said we were moving for about 6 hours of that. It seemed to be a little cooler today than yesterday and we were grateful. 

We got back to the hotel at 7pm and as a favor to ourselves and everyone else took showers before we joined the evening gathering. The staff have Wednesdays off so the hikes under discussion were for Thursday. We were so tired we left off making any particular plan for Wednesday. Dinner helped perk us up some and despite expectations of an early night we stayed up sampling wine with another guest until 11pm.

Wednesday, June 14th

We did manage to wake up in time to get breakfast before the buffet closed at 10am. Afterwards, the four of us slowly wandered the main street of Panticosa. There are some restaurants and shops open at this season but really this is a winter time ski destination. In fact, the large public parking lot closest to our hotel - Hotel Sabocos - is immediately adjacent to a ski lift. Because it’s the day off for the Colletts staff and there are no non-Colletts guests at the hotel tonight we are on our own for lunch and dinner.

It's quite warm today and though our rooms are fully closed we are on the top floor so they warm up a lot and we do not have fans or air conditioning. Still, we came back from our walk around the village at 11am and were hopeful that the rooms would be cool enough for a nap. It didn't work for us. But it was cool in the 1st floor lounge so we spent a leisurely afternoon there and had a "picnic" lunch with Larry & Robin from items we bought at the market in town. The remainder of the afternoon continued leisurely and around 8pm the restaurants in town started to open so we went out for a simple dinner of pizza. We could have driven to other nearby villages for sightseeing or meals but didn’t.

Thursday, June 15th

We are all much recovered from Tuesday’s exertions. This is good because though we’ve chosen from today’s hikes, the one that has slightly less elevation gain it’s still a significant hike: 9 miles and 2200’. We had nearly an hours drive to the trailhead but the route today was more interesting for a few reasons. #1 - Today’s hike is in France so we drove across the border (no checks or controls). #2 - We are driving through open rangeland. We had to stop once for cows in the road and got startled when we were in a short tunnel and there was a horse occupying the other lane. The drive was picturesque also due to fog filling some of the valleys.

The elevation for today’s hike is more gradual though mostly in the first half of the walk. We ate our lunches in the shade at an alpine mountain refuge. They had bunks for overnight guests and a cafe selling beer, wine, crepes, and other food. Our hike leader thinks they helicopter supplies in and that seems likely since we didn’t see any sign on the trails indicating horses or pack animals. What we are seeing all along the way are wildflowers. We had seen some on Tuesday’s hike as well but many more and an incredible variety today. The hike also included passing by a number of small lakes. As we were descending a treacherous slope of steep gravel, rocks, and boulders we could see fog advancing up the valley. We were looking forward to its cooling effect but by the time we got to the bottom it had retreated back down the valley. But we did catch  it eventually and the last mile or so of the hike was cool, damp and low visibility. We were out today for about 6 hours; we would have been quicker on our own but there was another Collets guest hiker who was struggling and we frequently paused.

Friday, June 16th

We signed up for a 6.5 mile hike with 1600’ of elevation gain. But at the last moment Serena decided not to go; too tired and in need of a day of relaxation. Everyone else got back at 3pm. The hike was quite exposed and it is another warm day so it’s good that it was a shorter hike. There was a nice panoramic view of our village but not as many wildflowers.

Tomorrow there’s a bicycle event on the main highway here so we’ll be getting out before they close the road. Luckily we’re heading south to get to San Sebastián and the road north is the portion more impacted by the event.

View of the moon and mountains from our hotel.

Hike #1 - We all made it to the top for our first hike in the Pyrenees.

Hike #1 - It's a stunning view from the top.

Hike #1 - This is NOT Yosemite or any other US National Park but it kind of resembles other places we've been.

Hike #1 - This trail is where we'll be for the second half of the hike.

Hike #1 - Nice little spot for a snack break.

Hike #1 - Cascade of snow melt at the very back of the valley. If you look close you can see people.

Hike #1 - The water continues to trickle and cascade into the valley.
It creates little creeks running across the meadow on its way to the river.

Hike #1 - The river gorge is quite stunning.

Hike #1 - These were some of our hiking companions in the meadow.

Hike #1 - Yellow Globe flowers

Hike #2 - This mountain (Peak de midi d'ossau) was in our view for most of the day.

Hike #2 - Wildflowers and mountain.

Hike #2 - Lac Gentau is one of the Lacs d'Ayous. This was our lunchtime view.

Hike #2 - That is some of our party on the trail.
Our lunch lake is over the ridge and we had to make our way around this massif.

Hike #2 - Fog is overtaking the valley portion of our trail.

Hike #2 - Moments after taking this we could no longer see any of the surrounding mountains.

Other than the color this could be a banana slug.

You Shall Not Pass!
The horse immediately in front of the car was only somewhat blocking the lane initially.
It truly appeared to deliberately move to block the entire lane.
Shortly it was joined by the other horse and we passed on the left.