Col d’Roncevalles to Okhabe
Distance Forward: 30.3km
Today, I’d like to give you some reasons not to hike the HRP. Or at least, some reasons to skip the first week. And if you’re going to do it anyways (like a real thru hiker would) heres what you have to look forward to.
It’s easy to romanticize the notion of hiking the length of France in the mountains, but I can assure you, there is very little romance to be had out here.
First of all, even on the easy days, it will be the most strenuous hiking of your entire life. The trail is always going straight up or straight down. The nice cruising stretches on good trail are far and few between.
Like today, after hiking out of the Col Roncevalles and passing a few other Cols, I came into sight of a beautiful mountain called Errotzate. It’s one of those mountains that is so big and vast that you spend an hour hiking towards it and feel like it hasn’t gotten any closer.
Once I got down in the valley below the mountain, I basically had to go up and over it at its lowest point (Col Errotzate), about a 1,500 ft climb. Of course, there is next to no trail as I bushwhack through waist-high grass, probably infested with ticks carrying debilitating Lyme’s Disease. The trail was a tiny, overgrown strip of dirt on the edge of a 45° ( / ) semi-cliff, going up at about a 25-30% grade
The second reason you shouldn’t hike the HRP: It’s dirty. There are cattle and livestock and their waste products everywhere all around you, and you almost never escape the tyranny of the asinine bells around their necks, ringing constantly at all hours, day and night. Which leads me to reason #3:
Biting insects. The overpopulation of livestock leads to plague-level hordes of biting insects, mosquitos, and horse flies. You can scarcely have a 10 minute break without having to swat 50 of the bastards off of you. And some of the livestock I saw were downright destroyed by them, with big festering gaping wounds under the extremities and in the sensitive places infested by the buggers.
And if it wasn’t bad enough, theres almost no accommodation out here. Even the day that we tried to find a bed and a shower, and went around to the only five places in town, they all turned us away. It felt rather inhospitable, and there was an air of “you’re outsiders, we don’t want you here” in that town.
Then there are long stretches of road walking that feel pretty unnecessary, and they will wreck even the most tempered feet, ankles, and knees.
Oh yeah, and the heat. There’s a reason the Spanish take siesta from noon to three every day. It’d be well and good if they hadn’t clear cut every single shade tree to make way for cattle grazing. The mountain breeze received in valleys and peaks and cols are the only way an HRP hiker can bear it. Pair that with the highly demanding ascents and descents, and I don’t care how much deodorant you brought, you’re gonna smell like a dead farm animal, lol.
And the heat and weather creating ability if the mountains creates some pretty gnarly winds and thunderstorms, with huge lightning strikes and weather that can turn from sun to storm in 15 minutes flat. Of course, the rains bring mud, which makes any trail more fun.
But then, if you decide you want to do a real thru hike and beat all this stuff and come out on the other side looking fresher than you did on the way in, and become a stronger person because of your strife, props! It’s hard work. Not many people’s idea of a vacation, but it is mine.
And that’s an essential part of any pilgrimage/long walk. Putting yourself at the mercy of the elements and the fates. And being prepared for all this jazz and anything that can be thrown at you, so that when you get to the good part (in this case the central haute Pyrenees), they feel that much more extraordinary, and you have truly earned every view you enjoy.
Also, today I got my first trail magic! As I was cooking dinner at the Col d’Oraate, an older woman and her granddaughter came over with a bottle of water and filled me up with over a liter, which allows me to camp wherever I like on this high mountain ridge that took all day to get to (1500m elevation and 27km distance). It’s not much, but there are some good people still out there. Kindness from strangers is another great ingredient of the pilgrimage.
A fog rolled in as I was coming to Okhabe, the highest hill so far at 1450m. summited, hiked down a ways to an old-growth hickory forest, and called it a night.