This day is dedicated to Pete–we got up early and had olives and Oreos for lunch.
I was in charge of the alarm clock this morning so I showed Pam how to operate a snooze button. After the 4th snooze, I reset the alarm. Bottom line, we were fed, packed, and on the trail at 8:45–our earliest start in about a week.
My pack weight was horrendous. After about 20 minutes of walking, I was ready to throw in the towel. I’m carrying in excess of 50 pounds and it definitely affected my feet today. But where I hurt most was cardio. You’d think after more than 950 trail miles, I’d start to build up some cardio. It sucks getting old.
The beauty of today was that it’s another easy day (according to the guidebook). Only 4000′ of gain and 5000′ of descent over a mere 14 miles. I’m really growing to dislike the author of the book–not as a guidebook writer, but as a person. He continues to irritate me on a near daily basis. Today, he called switchbacks “zigzags” and acted irritated that the trail builders included them. Today was one of the few times they actually got the switchbacks right–if you are facing the mountain while walking, it is not a switchback.
Even though the trails have switchbacks, French hikers won’t use them. We followed four French hikers and they all went straight up the mountain and avoided the switchbacks. No wonder the area near the pass has tremendous erosion problems.
The majority of the 4000′ we had to gain today was in the first 5 miles. It was really a pleasant walk in a mild sun with lots of shade. But as we got near the pass, the clouds started rolling in and it looked like our lack of luck with views was going to hold. The clouds were like the tide today. They rolled up the mountain and cooled everything off. When the sun warmed up the pass, they rolled back down the mountain. We saw this cycle a few times as we neared the pass. We figured we could catch the cycle and get a good view.
The way down from the pass was through an apparently abandoned ski area. We saw lifts without cables or cars; buildings falling down; and weeds overtaking stairs and parking lots. The trail was also poorly marked through the area–the worst we’ve dealt with the entire trial.
One thing I don’t like about the GR10 is that it’s up and down every day. It would be nice to get up in the mountains and stay at altitude for a few days before dropping back down to a village. It’s my understanding that the GR11 does just that. The French make sure to hit a village every day so they don’t have to camp or carry food. Hiking can actually be quite expensive in France because they tend to stay in gites and get prepared meals every day.
In 4 miles of steep descent, we lost every inch of elevation gain made this morning. The only redeeming part of this cruel up/down joke is that the French villages in the Pyrenees are the most charming places imaginable. They are all stone, orderly, and sparkling clean. We saw 70 year old men out cutting hay with a scythe and an old woman driving a tractor. Everyone appears to be hard working. The first village we came into was Grust. We sat and chilled for a bit while we decided how far we wanted to go.
The next village was Sazos. It was every bit as charming as Grust had been. When we entered town, we saw an old mill on the stream. It obviously hadn’t been used in decades, but there were old mill wheels sitting around the area. The guidebook had said there was a campground in town that had a swimming pool. Sucking down a beer poolside sounded very appealing to us, so we decided to check it out.
When we got there, the campground was more of a resort than a campground. There’s a swimming pool, bar, restaurant, hot tub, spa, and everything a camper could want. We quickly set up our camp then headed to the water. The only problem is France doesn’t allow drinking around the pool. We couldn’t combine the two activities, but we could still accomplish both. And we did.
