I woke up extra early this morning, because the hotel I am staying at (La Bringue) has an all you can eat breakfast buffet that runs 8-10am, and I don’t want to miss a minute of it.
If you learn one thing about thru-hikers from my writing, it should be that AYCE buffets are the holy grail of eternal life for us.
Like, after eating freeze-drieds, ramen and tin tuna for so long, you get the cravings, that hiker hunger, that only a pile of bacon, sausage, and eggs can resolve. When you get to a place with a breakfast buffet, oo girl.. watch out. It’s like I’ve been fasting for a week and suddenly I have unlimited meat and pastries and coffee and juice sitting in front of me. Needless to say, I went ham.
Puns aside, today was a great day. I was riding the calorie high from the amazing dinner and breakfast from the hotel all day. I did about 24km, and most of all the ups and downs between El Serrat and my next resupply point of Pas de la Casa, a ski-shopping-mall-resort place (with a burger king and like 10 supermarkets) on the French-Andorra border. My food is a little scarce, but I have enough to make it in for burgers tomorrow around lunch time.
The day began on a beautiful trail through the national park of the Sellente valley, famous for its mountain wildflowers.
I hiked up to the Col de la Meners, where I then had a nice hike down to a lake, and then a long walk on a ridgeline, ending at a cascade.
From there, there was about a 500m climb up and over a high ridge separating the valley I was in from the valley Incles.
Along the way, I met three German guys, who had their military-issue backpacking gear with them (can you say heavy?) who had just completed the 16 day stretch of the haute route from Gavarnie to L’hospitalet d’Andorre, minus the three hard days (there is a way around the hard days on the GR11 trail).
I almost traded gas canisters with them, because they had a full one of the medium sized cans that fits so nicely in my 1100ml pot, but my canister ended up leaking a bit with their stove, so we decided against it. Oh well, it was nice of them to offer.
We talked a bit about the HRP and the trail life, and then I headed down the mountain to the Refuge de Sorda.
From there, I was planning on going directly down to the valley below, but I later checked my maps and found myself on the ridge trail running parallel to the valley. But it was all good, because I got to see a lot more that way, and I saw an awesome cirque that I would’ve missed if I’d gone the way I intended.
And the trail leading down to the valley from that cirque was amazing! Best trail I’ve been on in a while. It was such easy walking, I was cruising down it.
When I came to the bottom, I found myself at a large social gathering outside of a rural Andorran restaurant-shack, where everyone was having beers and dinner. It looked like a very kickin’ joint. But I had to pass it up. I would get my calorie fix in Pas de la Casa tomorrow.
I carried on up the road, and found my trail leading to one of the most beautiful mountain cirques I have ever had the honor of visiting.
I sat down and made dinner right there, taking in all the gorgeous peaks and ridges all around me, and the lush green grass.
Finally, I walked up another 200m above this grassland, and found an amazing place to camp for the night, next to the Estany de Baix de Siscaro.
A very fine place to pitch the tent.
Good night!