Day 62–Wednesday, August 30. Merens/Ax les Thermes (8 miles)

It was a dark and stormy night–actually, it was dark, because it was night. It didn’t storm, but the winds did howl. This is the highest refuge we have stayed in. Whenever we have stayed at the head of a valley, the winds have been strong, but these were category 2 winds. The refuge is steel framed and the winds shook the building all night long. Little girls were crying and screaming, but surprisingly, Pam wasn’t one of them. Don’t get the idea she was stoic; Pam was just shy of a panic attack.

I didn’t sleep well either. I made the mistake of using their blankets instead of my quilt. I was scratching all night long because of the wool. The couple we shared a room with got up at 6 to begin their day of hiking. They are doing the entire GR10 in just 30 days (but staying in gites or refuges every night so they don’t carry a tent, stove, or food). With leaving an hour before sunrise and moving so fast, I wonder if they are enjoying themselves like we are.

At breakfast, we again bothered Patrick and Anne (that is, we sat with them). This is their last day. Martina and Richard were with them again. They had walked 10 hours to get to the refuge the day before and were too wore out to leave yesterday. Today, they are going to walk down to the nearest parking lot and hitchhike back to their car. Somehow, it had become known to a lot of people in the refuge that we were Americans who had sold everything and were hiking around the world (actually, the American part is pretty obvious since we were the only ones that spoke no additional language other than English). The first question most people ask us is “Trump?” We just hang our heads in shame and shrug our shoulders–we don’t get it either.

This will come as a shock, but we were the last ones to leave the refuge. Patrick calls us the clean-up crew and feels relaxed knowing that we will be behind them if anything happens. The reason we were so late is because we were talking to an American with dual French citizenship. Stefan Herald is retired now, but he was born in the USA, educated in England but is half French and lives in Paris. He was an aspiring actor at one point in his life and lived in LA for over a decade perusing that dream. We covered lots of subjects with him (including politics) but we just had a great time talking with him. He found our story of “breaking out” inspirational and encouraged us to write about it. We have travelled to several of the same places he has and he gave us some more travel ideas, as well. We gave him one of our cards and fully expect him to tell us to quit writing once he reads a little.

After talking with Stefan for over an hour, Pam drug me out into the rain and winds to get moving. We agreed to get together with Stefan when we come to Paris around the beginning of November. We have met, and continue to meet, amazing people wherever we go. This is probably the most enjoyable aspect of our travels.

To the trail–this is the first time I’ve ever had to keep my hiking poles in front of me while hiking uphill. These were the strongest winds we’ve ever hiked in. When we got to the top of the first pass, the winds actually pinned us to a boulder for a couple of minutes. We turned around and saw a rainbow behind us over the Refuge with blue skies approaching (the feature photo today).

It was only 8 miles predominately downhill (just a tad over 5000′ down) today with an estimated hiking time of 5 hours. We spent over 2 hours covering the first 2 miles because of multiple boulder fields. We thought there was no way we were going to make it to Merens in time to catch the 4:10 bus at this rate. Then, we even amazed ourselves. After the boulder field was a little over 1000′ climb which we knocked out in about 20 minutes–it was so easy once we got to a trail.

We caught up with Patrick and Anne in the valley 2500′ below the pass. They were finishing up their lunch and gave us some muesli bars they didn’t want (we were literally down to our last bags of M&Ms so this was a great boost for us–when the M&Ms are gone, I’ve only got 2 hours left to get Pam to civilization or she sits down and won’t move).

From this point, it was only supposed to be a little more than an hour into Merens. Worst case, if we missed the bus, we would just stay at the gite there and resupply from the small shop in town. Patrick and Anne said they’d see us at the bar for a drink in Merens and took off. We didn’t even pretend that we could walk with them: 1) they are French hikers and,2) they hike for a living (they are doing research on the underlying aspects of cooperation for multiple parties working on extensive projects–to get a better feel for the hidden cultural impacts of people involved. They walk into the areas where the projects are taking place to get a feel for life at “human speeds” and to develop an understanding of local custom which would impact the manner in which people approach the project.–I hope I’ve got the gist right).

We actually made it to Merens by a little after 3 and caught up with them after they had scoped out the town. This truly was a place with nothing for hikers (or residents). How do people live in these little villages? Even the bar was permanently closed. They decided to try to hitchhike down the valley so we left them so they could find a ride. I tried sticking my thumb out a little later, but was worried about how we would communicate if someone actually stopped. We decided to wait for the bus and would try hitchhiking if it didn’t show.

The bus showed and right on time. It was hard enough to communicate with the driver but we successfully did it. When we got on, there was a young kid that spoke a little English and he was happy to try to talk with us–first question, “Do you like Trump?” He knew most major political figures in the USA and didn’t like any of them; he understands our political system only attracts scum.

The ride to Ax was only 15 minutes. When the bus pulled up to the train the (bus is the train in slow times), Patrick and Anne were there waiting to get on. At least they had gotten enough of a jump from their successful hitchhiking to have a drink while they waited for the bus. We headed toward the trusty tourist info office.

As usual, they got us all the answers we needed including a hotel for 2 days. We went and checked in. It was only 5, earlier than we normally stop, so we walked around a bit to verify where everything was before we could have dinner at 7. We chose to eat at the restaurant next to the hotel which had some American foods we recognized and craved–we always like a greasy burger after a couple weeks out.

Since they don’t serve food until 7, we had no choice other than to drink beer. While sipping away, the French family with the two cute little girls we had been hiking with the last few days walked by. We talked to them a bit. I regret that we never exchanged names or got their picture. I always felt a little awkward around them and don’t know why. The ironic thing is the girls didn’t speak any English and the parents did, just the opposite of what everyone told us to expect–they may have just been shy, but they were always all smiles to us.

The burgers were huge, easily a pound each. Pam could only eat 1/2 of hers so I ate 1&1/2 burgers and went to bed pleasantly stuffed.