Author: Dragon

Ahh, I overslept! It was 9 am by the time I got going today. Robin had already hiked out towards the village of Parzan, where we were to resupply before setting out on the next 5 day stretch, supposedly one of the most difficult of the entire trail.

I threw everything into my pack and hiked out after her. We eventually met up on the highway down to Parzan after a nice 5km walk down a dirt road leading out of the valley we had camped in.

We got down to town and hit the local supermarket, bought 5 days of food, and went to the local burger shop. I also had an 800 calorie chocolate shake from the grocery store, so my body was in food-coma mode trying to figure out what to do with all the energy it just received! I was just barely able to finish the burger, and felt super locked and calorie loaded a few minutes after.

We bought a few things at the other store on the way out of town and hiked back up the road 1.5km to where we had left our backpacks, since this was an out-and-back resupply (meaning Parzan was a 3km round trip down the road, off trail) and picked up the trail just up the highway on a dirt road.

The dirt road dragged on for about 10km, uphill the whole time. We passed one pretty body of water, although it was a dammed lake used for power generation. The color is still awesome! I wish there were better ways for us to generate electricity, so that we could leave our natural places as they are, for all future generations to enjoy, although in this case, this construct may have improved the beauty of the area by creating a place for the water to show its true colors.

We hiked on and up and reached the Col de Urdecito, where we were met by, you guessed it, more awesome views of the mountains we will spend the next couple days hiking towards.

We hiked down the trail and found a perfect camping spot in a big grassy meadow, a bowl carved into the mountainside, with waterfalls cascading down around us.

We made dinner and went to bed. We need all the sleep we can get right now, to restore our muscles and prepare for the tough 5 days ahead of us! It’s gonna be gorgeous country, lakes and mountains and glaciers and all that good stuff! It will surely be an adventure. Stay tuned.

P.s. the full moon rise over the mountains just off our front veranda was serene. I tried to capture it with a long exposure.

We awoke to the sound of hundreds of bells, as a herd of cattle had descended upon the stream next to our camp in the dawn, to quench their morning thirst.

We packed up and got hiking by 9. I slept in an hour because I was worn out! The hike led us up the side of a mountain on switchbacks, next to a cascading stream in a valley.

Climbing up to the pass

We soon met a group of four HRP hikers from Germany and Switzerland, who had been out a day longer than I have, 19 days! Their packs looked pretty heavy, which could explain their slower pace.

In fact, one of them came up to me later and was marveled by my “CDT 3,000 Mile” patch on my backpack. He said all my gear looked really light, and asked if I was a professional hiker! Ahh, I wish. I don’t get paid to hike, yet.. but I did sell my car to go hiking, so maybe that counts for something.

We hiked up and over a number of cols, and along a beautiful high ridge, eventually coming to the Lacs de Barroude, nestled in a little bowl and sheltered by the massive Wall of Barroude, a glacially carved curtain of granite, reminiscent of the slabs of Yosemite.

Horquette d’Hèas (very windy)

We had lunch there, and decided it felt weird to stop hiking at 3pm, so we continued on down the trail. We came over a pass to a gorgeous valley with quite a few waterfalls ( six or seven? ) cascading over 3,000 feet down the granite cliffs.

After reaching the valley floor, we made dinner and pitched camp for the night with the sound of a river (fed by all the waterfalls) to lull us to sleep. Good night!

I met Robin at her campsite early this morning, where she had tested out her new 1 man tent the night before.

Goodbye Gavarnie

We set out to hike possibly the hardest 7 day stretch of the whole HRP! The final 3 days of this stretch are all “E” level days, meaning they are exceptional and extremely challenging for even experienced mountain walkers.

It will take all of our strength and resolve to make it through these days in tact. It will surely be an adventure and lead us to some of the most remote and untouched reaches of the whole Pyrénées mountain range.

Today’s walk was pretty straightforward: a 1,000m climb up to a pass that leads out of the Cirque de Gavarnie, and into the lesser-known Cirque de Estaube.

After that, there was about a 1,000m decent down a valley to the Barrage d’Gloriettes, a beautiful artificial lake, although the water level was quite low in late July.

Then a 5km road walk to the small hamlet of Héas, where we considered getting a repas du soir (dinner) at the Auberge, but it was €20, so we decided to save our money and make dinner ourselves.

We picked up the trail down the road and found a nice place to cook and watch the evening roll in. We thought about camping at a refuge, but I’m pretty anti-asking-permission when it comes to camping, so we decided to hike up an hour during sunset to a beautiful plateau with multiple waterfalls and great views instead.

We didn’t have to ask to camp there. And it was free! Good night!

Today we took a zero day in the village of Gavarnie, which lies in the valley below the magnifique cirque de Gavarnie! It is possibly the most famous of all the mountain massifs of the Pyrénées, and people travel from all over to witness its sheer grandiosity.

After a great breakfast at the hostel (toast, jam, coffee, OJ, and milk) I booked another night (because it was such an enjoyable place), left my pack in the room, and went out to experience the town.

I was able to get some food for the trek to Parzan at the market, throw my clothes in the wash at a campground, and grab some camping gas and freeze dried meals at a camping store.

Then I took a pleasant walk down the main trail to get a closer view of the cirque. The Cirque du Gavarnie is surely one of the most beautiful natural wonders of the whole trail. I got as close as I felt necessary to get good pictures, and then walked the 3km or so back to town.

Later on in the evening, I made my own dinner at the auberge, as all the chefs in town seemed to have taken off for the Gavarnie festival, an annual extravaganza of theatric plays! Tonight’s selection was the classic Orpheus and Euripide. It was too rich for my blood, thus why I just hung out at the inn and enjoyed the view in the evening.

The inn-keeper came out and talked with me for a bit. He is fluent in so many languages, its quite impressive! I suppose that is a trait you need if you run a hostel at an international tourist hotspot. He told me about his flying over the pyrenees, and gave me his youtube channel so I could check out the mountains I’ll be hiking over from the sky.

He also taught me a new french phrase. “Ho putain!” It means “oh shit!” Hahah!!

We both went to bed early having big days tomorrow. Good night!

Today’s walk traversed the Col d’Ossou after a nice hike out of the valley of the Gaube, which spreads out from the Northern face of Vignemale, a famous high peak of the Pyrénées at 3,300m.

Just past the col lies the Refuge Baysellance, the highest staffed refuge in the Pyrénées at around 2,700m.

From there, the trail descended the valley created by the melt from Glacier Ossau, a spectacular crevasse with steep granite peaks all around, and plenty of waterfalls to keep you entertained.

At the base of the valley, the floor spreads out in a vast plateau, where a huge river / glacier must have flowed at some point.

The trail continued down this valley for 10km to Gavarnie, passing a number of other impressive, cirque-like mountain valleys.

Finally, I arrived at Gavarnie and found a place at the Oxygene auberge (inn), where hikers and travelers from all over can rest their feet and have a nice breakfast for just €22 a night (and in the most touristed center of all the Pyrenees no less!).

No doubt people would surely pay €100 or more for the view you receive from the bedrooms and patios of this refuge.

Later, I reunited with my hiking partner Robin, and we had dinner at a restaurant on the main street. It was quite fantastic to experience the French version of a Hawaiian pizza! It was loaded down with tons of fresh veggies and delicious local cheese. Wonderful.

We decide to take a zero day tomorrow, because my clothes haven’t had a proper wash in 15 days! Sink washing just doesn’t cut it after a certain point, hah.

Look forward to awesome pictures of the cirque tomorrow! Good night!

Today’s adventure begins on the Port de la Peyre Saint Martin, a mountain pass on the border of France and Spain, just below and east of the mountain Balaitous (a good name for a dragon).

I awoke in the shadow of the mountains, and so it was pretty cold. There is still ice and snow all around where I was camping (in late July), if that helps explain how cold this valley was!

I packed up and set out for the next mountain pass separating me from the Mediterranean Sea, Col du Cambales. The traverse was rough, mostly on loose scree (like gravel mixed in with all sizes of rocks) and ice. The ice was especially nerveracking because I don’t have any snow gear, and because it was early in the morning, meaning the snow was hard as ice and it is very easy to slip and slide down to your death, or break a bone or something. None of which sounds appealing to me.

So I took my time on the icy traverses, meticulously kicking my boots into the ice to carve out steps, until I was confident that the next step could support my weight without fail. It took me about 30 minutes of this act to get across about 50 feet of ice. I was more worried about this first ice sheet, because I couldn’t actually see the bottom of it, which usually means it gets steeper as you go down it, which means you gain that much more speed if you were to fall and hit whatever is at the bottom with that much more force. Ouch. I dont even wanna think about it!

Anyways, I made it across the ice fields, exhausted from all the kicking, and had to climb a huge steep mountainside of loose rocks to get up to the Pass of Cambales. Easy enough.

The view on the other side was pretty alright, by Pyrenees standards. I was more excited about another fact: after climbing all the way up here to 2,700m, I get to slide down the ice on the other side of the pass, which is really fun, and a quick way to get down fast!

I continued on down past some very scenic lakes, the Lacs du Cambales.

Then I made it down in the forested valley, to the refuge Wallon.

After that, it was a long uphill to the Lac de Arratille, where I took a (very brief) swim in the glacial meltwater to cool off! It was hot on the way up from the valley in the afternoon sun. I once again fell in love with the colour of pristine glacial lakes. I wish all water could be this color.

I carried on from the lake, up towards the Col du Arratille, where there was a secret surprise lake just below the col! Ugh! There are so many glacial lakes! I’m in heaven!

I passed the col and got my first view of the famous mountain Vignemale, which has a commanding presence in this valley.

After a long ridge walk, I came to the last col before the Gaube valley, where I settled down to camp for the night. There were a ton of people down in the valley with the same idea! I decided to keep up high on a bluff, as I’m not a fan of people noise right now, especially since I go to bed so early, usually as soon as the sun goes down around 10.

All in all an awesome day of lakes, mountains, and forests. Tomorrow, I will make it to Gavernie, where I should meet back up with Robin, who is all recovered now! Yay! We’ll take a good full zero rest day before tackling the next 7 days of the HRP, which are billed as the hardest part of the whole trail. We’ll see about that! Stay tuned!

Ps just when I thought the view tonight couldn’t get any better! I saw this little arc of white appear above one of the mountain peaks. The moon rose right above Vignemale! Just getting to watch the moon slowly unveil itself from behind this beautiful massif of peaks, made me feel very present here. It was a cool moment to experience.

said the owner of the refuge, as his expression changed from smile to shock. “Too dangerous. Steep. Snow.”

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me rewind to the beginning of the day.

I woke up to a completely dry tent, despite all the mist coating everything last night. It’s the little victories that make a day good, haha. It was frigid when I woke up, so I stayed in my sleeping bag until the sun came up and the greenhouse effect of my rainfly made the space a habitable temperature.

Everything flew into my backpack and I was ready to hike by 9. I wanted to get a head start on today–this is one of the few sections of the HRP that the guidebook rates as “E” for exceptional, or extremely challenging.

The first hurdle I came to was the “Passage d’Ortege”, basically a narrow trail along a vertical cliff face, with a cable to hold on to so you don’t plummet 500 metres to a quick and painful demise. To make it even better, I had to squeeze around about 20 people that were going the other way on this passage, ha! They were going really slow, but I can’t blame them. When I got to the end, there were some people waiting there. “Is it easy or difficult?” They asked.

“Piece of Cake,” I said, and they both laughed.

I carried on and made it to a perch just above the Refuge Arremoulit, where I thought was a fine place to have a cup of coffee.

Then, I made my way down to the refuge. Most everyone had already left for the day. I admired the beauty of the glacial water just outside their front door.

Then, as I was surveying the route ahead and checking my maps, the refuge owner saw me. “Bonjour!” he said, in a very welcoming way. “Bonjour,” I replied. He started asking me a question in French, but I had to use my trusty “Je ne se pas Francais” (I dont know French) response. “I am headed for Col du Palas.”

That’s when his face changed, ha! It went from welcoming and happy, to shocked and fearful for my life. “It cannot be done.” He said. My english, not very good. Come” he said with a gesture.

He led me to a younger blonde girl about my age, who knew good English. I was jealous right away that she got to work in such an outstanding place.

“You are doing Col du Palas? It cannot be done. It is impossible. With crampons and ice axe, maybe.” She described an alternate route that is much less dangerous (which I knew about, but not one to be discouraged from a way just because of difficulty or danger, I was pretty set on the official, hard HRP route.

“Is there any way to avoid the hard parts of Col du Palas?” I asked.

She said, “no. It is fine up to Col du Palas, but then, it is very steep, and there is heavy snow pack below the second pass after that, the Port de Lavadan is a V that you have to climb up and over, and then the other side is snow as well. Also, there is a hole/gap between the snow and the rock of the V, perhaps 30m deep. We cannot recommend people to do this route because of these dangers, and we do not want to hear in the news tonight that a man fell in the hole.”

I laughed about the last part. “Thank you for the information,” I said, and we parted ways. I knew which way I was going!

I made it up to Port de Peyre Saint Martin and set up my tent behind a rock wall, to break the wind. I went to bed in the haze and woke up in the clear. What a day! Definitely an “E” exceptional rating from me.

Words can’t express how awesome today was. I will let the photos and captions do most of the storytelling today.

I woke up at the Auberge Refuge at Col du Somport, had their breakfast, and hit the road. It looked like it was going to be another dreary foggy day. Bluh.

I met another HRP thru-hiker from Germany, named Sylvia! We camped right near each other at the Lac d’Arrious, in preparation to get up and over two high cols that may present some challenges with ice, snow, cliffs, and scree.

That means so far, I have met HRP hikers from: Holland, Scotland, New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, the Canary Islands, USA (just me unfortunately!)

After spending a full month outside of the U.S., I can say with certainty that we are the most fortunate, most technologically advanced, and most free civilization on Earth.

Nowhere else do I know of a place where people are as free to organize, to protest, to defend ourselves, to write and think differently, to ascend from our lot in society, than we are in America.

While there are those that would try to divide us, to usurp and overthrow us, to pit neighbor against neighbor, we are a united people.

We must be, or those who wish us harm will surely prevail, and the American way of life could be cast away and unwritten from history, for the benefit of endless ages of tyrants and evil.

We cannot realize how lucky we are without stepping away from the country and viewing and experiencing the way of things elsewhere. We are so immersed in our freedom and the benefits of our society that they have become commonplace, a given, invisible to us.

We share a history, the good parts and the bad. We share a way of life, an American philosophy, that binds all of our independent actions into a single rope that lifts up all the things we hold dear.

How many people have died so that we could live this comfortable existence, that we could become such a great nation? They died for you as they died for me. They died for liberals and conservatives. They gave their life for the bible-thumpers, the baby boomers, the entrepreneurs, the rocket scientists, the gangsta rappers, the neo-nazis, every man woman and child that has ever had the honour and the privilege of being borne onto American soil. We owe everything to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for that which they believed in. Who devoted their life to a country full of thinkers and doers and fighters and writers, and people strong enough to stand up for what is right, and to put in the hard work of building something grand, something that the entire rest of the world looks up to and idealizes.

We have something great here. America is a great country already–always has been–and there’s nothing any bad-haired scapegoat politician or multi-national corporate conglomeration can do about it.

In this global age, those who produce the best media (music, movies, books, TV) are the ones who decide which direction the world moves in. And right now, nobody produces media or has as vibrant of an entertainment industry as America. We must realize how much influence we have on a global scale. What we do now, what we produce and broadcast and publish today, influences all future generations to come.

The world is listening. What do you have to say?

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Today I woke up to the sound of Spanish people talking. Because they camped. Right. Next to me. Oh well. I slept really well in any case. 20km of mountain walking will do that to you. Really resets the old circadian clock. Puts you on nature’s time. Falling asleep is no longer a chore, or work, it is only a blessing.

It was foggy and the entire tent was soaked. Nonetheless, I got it all down and walked off around 8am. I made good time to my first stop (5km), and had some coffee while waiting for the fog to clear. I didn’t walk all this way to see fog! Ugh. Better here than in the true high pyrénées.

Around noon, I met a group of 5 Scottish people who saw me walk off at the refuge! They said they got some badass shots of me fading into the fog with my trekking pole umbrella, like something out of an old Japanese samurai movie. They are doing the section of the high route to Gavernie, so hopefully I’ll see them a few more times over the next week. They told me about this awesome place called Auberge, from which I am writing this sentence right now.

I carried on and made it to the beautiful Ibon du Estanés. Well, almost beautiful. I felt I was tantalized all day by half-views, beautiful things opaqued by the mist. Ah well, there will be plenty of beautiful things where I’m headed.

Then, I met another hiker named Samuel from the Canary Islands! He is doing the HRP as well, and was originally with 2 others, but they said it was too hard and went back to Barcelona, lol. So now he is stuck with some big gear that was meant for three people. Ouch.

In any case, we walked the last few km to Candanchu together and got the fully loaded burger from the Expeditionista Bar! It was legendary! He also helped a lot with finding out where refuges and supermarkets were in town. It is very useful to have someone who can speak Spanish in Spain, believe it or not.

Later on, I checked out two of the refuges in Candanchu and wasn’t impressed with their hospitality. Then I walked on up the trail to the Auberge place the Scots told me about! I almost said “eff it” and moved on to camp somewhere, but I walked in and asked for a bed. Just 15 euros, with breakfast included for another 6! I’m sold. After unpacking on my bunk and hanging things out to dry, I went upstairs and had a few beers while writing today’s post.

I hope you have enjoyed the tale thus far. It will only get better from here as we enter the magical haute pyrenees! Stay tuned!

After a quick “cafe forte” from the breakfast nook of the gîte, I packed up and hit the trail by 8am.

The first stretch was a pleasant road walk through grass, forest, and farmland, which ended at a trailhead, with the trail pointed up a wooded limestone valley.

After about 1,300m of ascent, I reached col d’Pau. That’s where today got really good! The next 10km of trail was all level, easy ridge walking, with views into both Spain and France’s Pyrenees National Parks, which I entered on the way up.

I have begun to pass more hikers every day, which is a good sign that we’re starting to approach the most coveted regions of the Pyrenees.

The ridge walk ended at the beautiful Refuge d’Arlet, where I walked in and asked to “bivouac” (basically tent for the night) nearby. Bivouacing is free here, as you aren’t using any of their services. The owner pointed out a prime spot about 100m from the ‘fuge, with awesome views all around. It’s nice to be close by to other people in case of another hell storm, but I also prefer sleeping outside and away from the crowded bunk rooms full of snoring bears and smelly boots, especially on such a nice day.

But then, since I said I wanted to be near people, the universe sent a group of 20 Spanish students with four huge tents to set up right next where I was camped at like 8pm! I was like, come on! I didn’t hike 250km to camp right next to a bunch of loud people, I did it to experience the solitude and tranquility of the mountains. Ugh. Lesson learned. Bivouac further away from refuges.

I’ve also felt, since I got here at 2pm, that I should be hiking on. I had 8 hours to do not much other than write a bit and lay out in the sun under my shade umbrella, before going to bed around 10. Reckon that is the nomadic mindset I’m in now. I simply get bored with the place I’m in after a few hours of it. Something new to keep in mind. Maybe I should bring a book next time.

Anyways, I put in some earplugs to drown out the nonstop Spanish yelling and passed out promptly. Goodnight!