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Trekking the Pyrenees, Catalan Style

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

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

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

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

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

Related post/s:
An entire collection of photos taken during our trek on Flickr
Carros de Foc trail

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Day 7: Surviving the Catalan Pyrenees

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

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

Video diary, day 7: Surviving the Catalan Pyrenees

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

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

Related post/s:
Photos of Ventosa back to Restanca on Flickr
Our reward was waiting in Barcelona
Video courtesy of Tripfilms.com

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