The weather forecast is rainy then cold, colder than we are prepared for. The valley was forecast for temperatures down to -1 C, which means the mountains will be even colder and we don’t have the gear for those temperatures. More importantly we were planning on heading into an area which had no easy outs to towns, so we would be stuck if things got ugly. Unfortunately we also don’t have enough time to go to town and wait out the bad weather and be able to continue with enough time to make it to the car, so we will need to head back to the car and reorganize.
Deciding to bail on your plans is always a difficult choice to make. Betty mentioned in terms of feeing like failure, which I do understand, but I’ve also experienced enough bad weather to know that sometimes the responsible choice is to let go of your plans, and to make the best of what you’re given. It’s just not worth the risk. I’d rather spend this vacation doing fun things than deal with shit weather and risk our safety, just to keep out plans.
The weather today was great, we asked the caretaker at the refugi of there was a way to get to Vielha, because it’s the nearest town, and he said there was a bus at 7:30 (it was 8 at the time), we asked if there was a way to hike and he said yes we could follow the GR 211 and it was a 6 hour hike. I asked if it was nice and he said it was… although I’m not honestly positive he understood me.
It was a plan, we could enjoy the day, but avoid the bad weather that was coming.
The hike up was beautiful, although a little cool when the wind was blowing. The views were fantastic, they just kept getting better and better as we went up. We grabbed lunch not too far from the top out of the wind and in the sun with views of The valley we were hiking out of and the mountains behind them. As we went further up we were treated to views of the tallest mountain in the Pyrenees.
Once we hit the pass we got different but also spectacular views of the other side. There were lots of raspberries on the way down… it might have taken more time than usual because of the snacking. We talked about camping on the way down and spotted a potential spot across a valley. We bushwhacked over toward the potential spot, but when we got got the stream coming down, it was completely dry. With no water there was no way to camp, so we had to head to town. Eventually we did hit water closer to town, but too far to hike back up.
We checked into the same hotel we stayed at a couple days earlier, showered and went out for taps.
I’m not normally one to talk about town food, but the tapas were really amazing. Betty had never tried octopus or muscles before and they did an amazing job cooking both, not to mention the cheese, ham/bacon (we called them bacon popcorn because they were salty and crunchy bite sized noms) and squid that were also fantastic.
Day 6: bus and train back to Lourdes and make a plan to continue hiking.