It rained through the night again. When I got up for the 3rd time at 6:30, it was still misting and heavily overcast. I figured Pam wouldn’t even entertain getting up so I went back to bed. Around 8:45, the sky brightened up and Pam awoke raring to go.
The clouds started breaking up and blue sky appeared. We cooked breakfast and started packing up. While we were doing that, the sun broke completely through, so we decided to dry everything out and Pam thoroughly cleaned the tent. We had vowed we weren’t going to have another 11:15 start and we didn’t. But the time we packed everything up and soaked our feet while crossing the stream, it was 11:30.
We had the final 1/3 of yesterday’s itinerary to complete which involved a couple of 600+ foot climbs. It was beautiful walking. The sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, and we were walking through forests. The climbs still take it out of us being Midwest flatlanders, so we took our first break at the top of the first climb.
Our goal was to make it to Chalets d’Irati to do a little grocery shopping and possibly grab some food from a restaurant. I’ve pretty much given up on restaurants in France. The gastronomic ones are incredible and incredibly expensive. The bars don’t serve food until after 7 most evenings, so there really isn’t an option for a hot noon meal. I’m tired to death of smoked ham and cheese without any condiments.
When we got to Chalets d’Irati, it was no different. We got there about 2 and the shop was closed and the bar was only serving sandwiches on baguettes. We decided to wait until the shop opened and then just eat lunch on the deck behind the bar.
The deck behind the bar–what an amazing view of the Pyrenees east of us. The clouds have been trying to roll in all day, but the mountains are holding them at bay. The clouds have overcome anything smaller than 3500′ in height, but we are sitting at over 4000′ in the sunshine looking at a sea of clouds between us and the taller mountains.
As we were heading into the shop, Pam heard a young couple of hikers talking and said they speak English. We bumped into them inside and invited them to share a picnic table with us on the deck when they got done shopping. Emma and Ali are a young English couple who have quit their jobs. They had started hiking the Haute Route but are going to switch to the GR10 because they felt it was too dangerous in places. They speak a little French but never really learned “can we sleep in your abandoned school” when they were learning French. Ali also speaks some German because he is half German by birth.
Not long after we all sat down, Axel walked up on the deck. He and Heike decided to take a rest day off because yesterday’s hike took it out of them. We all sat and talked for a couple of ours. Axel and Heike climbed the mountain yesterday that we skipped and said they felt safe but couldn’t see anything.
To me, this was an ideal hiking day even though we had only hiked 3.5 miles so far. We had a gorgeous day, great hiking, and were getting to know new people.
A little before 5, we split up and went our separate ways. Axel and Heike are spending the night at Irati while Emma and Ali are heading into Larrau via the GR10 alternate. We probably won’t see them again because they hike a lot faster than us–this is their 6th day and our 12th. We might see Axel and Heike when they pass us tomorrow. We’ll have a 4 mile head start on them, but our morning track record isn’t looking good of late.
We still had a few good hours of daylight left, so we headed on towards Logibar. We started out with a small 3-400′ climb to our highest point so far at 1423m (approx 4400′). We were still well above the clouds, but we were going to be hiking down into them.
Passing through the clouds was like entering Neverland. Or maybe like climbing down the Andes into a lost civilization that was banging on bells. The cows and sheep were moving around below us, but we couldn’t see them, we could just hear their bells.
Pam lost her mixed nut eating privileges this evening. When we were in Santiago, she made me buy a nut/seed/dried fruit mix for 25 Euros/kg. Tonight, I caught her picking out the fruit and nuts while leaving me all the seeds. When I told her to eat some seeds, she refused. She can’t just eat all my sweet nuts and not swallow any of the seeds. I’m pretty sure that’s called a tease.
We made it down to the spot we had chosen to stop at, by the water supply around 3000′, a little before 8. The clouds were and getting thicker. Visibility was down to less than 50′. We stayed very close together on the way down not only because of the visibility but also because of the cows that decided to take a stand against passing humans on THEIR trail. Pam graciously let me lead in those instances.
Level spots are an issue up this high, but with poor visibility we just didn’t have much choice. We are camped in a cow pasture and we have no idea what kind of view we might wake up with in the morning. I cooked dinner while Pam organized the tent. This works out since I’m not a fan of inflating the air mattress and we know about Pam’s cooking exploits.
