Mountain Climbing In The Spanish Pyrenees

Travel Adventure

Obviously, this is not the Spanish Pyrenees, but the other day, we walked down to the beach with our dog and sat on the sand, watching the waves curl as they broke over the sand. It was a welcome distraction from the ghastly images and reports of the atrocities in Israel. It also reminded me of our travels, where we seemed away from the world’s problems.

One place, in particular, immersed us in the “now”, with otherworldly cares pushed into the subconscious. The location was the mountain range straddling the French-Spanish border.

We arrived at our Parador (mountain lodge), 14 km from the tiny town of Bielsa and just 10 km from the French border, midway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. While the accommodation was pretty average, the views were spectacular as we were right in front of a concave-shaped ridge of the Pyrenees Mountains. We could take this all in from our room, including several waterfalls.

The following day, we decided to do a lengthy hike. By the end of the day, we thought to ourselves - what were we thinking? What we thought would be a 5-hour easy/moderate hike turned into a marathon. Part of the problem lay with an improper description on the sheet we were given because the translation in English left something to be desired. In addition, the signpostings along the trail were ambiguous. We met other hikers, even Spanish ones, who were as confused as we were.

We thought we had straightened out as we came to the Cinco Waterfall up on the mountain, the one we could see from our room in the Parador. Up to that point, the hike was mostly moderate. We had our picnic lunch at the beautiful, cascading waterfall before setting off again.

A small bridge crossed the waterfall, and from there, we could see a ledge with a path and a plaque with the words "Dangerous Path". We should have turned around then and there. But no, our curiosity got the better of us. I couldn't believe it; we were climbing along a ledge while hugging onto a rock face cliff with a 1000-foot drop below, despite my ongoing fear of high places. There was no way to take a photo on that ledge; it took our total concentration. The red arrow below points to the start of the ledge.

In places, the hike entailed climbing on all fours as we negotiated an ill-defined path only marked sporadically by crude cairns.

After freaking out with the precarious ledge, we thought the worst was over. Not so. Ahead of us lay a cliff, which we had to scale by holding onto a chain to get to the top. At this point, there was no way we would turn back because the thought of going back downhill on that ledge was too much to bear.

The rest of the "hike" consisted of climbing up rocks, walking through a beautiful meadow and, once the descent started, clambering over rocks and boulders. We thought this hiking trail was someone's idea of a joke. Eventually, we got back to the main road, and then it was another 3-kilometre hike back to the Parador.

The hike took us from 10:00 am to 8:00 pm–10 hours and some 20 kilometres. We were sore and exhausted, and our muscles were definitely letting us know about it the following day.

Nature is raw and beautiful. It may give you some anxious moments, but it doesn't care whether you are black, brown or green. But it offers solace from some of the darkness that imbues humanity's deranged aspects.