Since we didn’t get “petite dejuneur” from the refuge, we chose to sleep in until almost 8. There was only one woman still sleeping when we got up, yet she still managed to beat us out of the refuge. Our string of last place starts still stands. Martin and Tobias (the two German guys we met in Py) barely beat us out of the refuge, yet we never saw them all day.
I learned something very sad today (sadder even than a baby lamb hovering over its dead momma). If you are standing next to a fresh steaming cow pie and the flies prefer to be on you rather than it, it’s time for a shower. I was never so sad for Pam before (yes, she married me).
The GR10 did something strange today–it stayed above 5000′ all day when it had the opportunity to dip down into a deep valley and make us climb all the way back up. We are actually in the middle of a four day stretch where we don’t descend below 4500′ and we love it. Don’t get the impression that the trail is staying level; we still manage to climb and descend several thousand feet a day, but it’s in smaller chunks of 1000′ or less at a time.
Since we are staying at altitude, even with a sunny clear day, the weather was quite pleasant for hiking. Today was the first time I was sweating with a cold nose and hands. Pam and I opted to wear our fleece hats and gloves today while hiking. The trail leads into a very popular area around Canigou–a 9000′ peak close to the Mediterranean. Martin and Tobias chose the GR10 alternate route leading over the peak while we decided to follow the GR10 proper.
The views were spectacular in all directions. Even though the Pyrennes Orientales are not as wild as the Ariege, they are quickly becoming my favorite portion of the trail. Now that we have a handle on the food situation, life seems to be going pretty good.
The French trail time for the day was 5:40. We did it in just under 8 hours after accounting for: a coffee break on the trail because we were dragging so bad in the beginning, an extended lunch overlooking the villages in the valley below us, and an unexpected wildlife encounter with an owl. I do have to say that we are a little disappointed with the low quantity and quality of wildlife we have encountered on the trail. Pretty much, all we have seen are marmots, a fox, 2 squirrels, an owl, and a couple of snakes. At first, I was impressed with the successful cohabitation of livestock and wilderness trail, but now I am seeing the result is really a lack of wildlife diversity.
Dinner conversations in the refuges still revolve around the “bear problem” in the Pyrenees. I’m from Illinios and I used to live in Chicago. Let’s talk about a real Bear problem. We have less than 50 Bears in the city, yet they are the daily topic of conversation around every dinner table in the city. The consensus seems to be to kill the entire group and start over from scratch. We also have some beloved Cubs in the city–maybe we can nurture them into the fearsome Bears we were used to back in the 80s. But enough sports.
Due to “technical difficulties” when we arrived at the CAF (Club Alpine Francais) refuge, they had not completed the daily awards presentation. We thought this might exist, but we have ran into several French hikers who encourage us to take our time because “after all, it’s not a race to hike the GR10.” We were in time to discover the list of daily awards presented to French hikers which include: “Earliest Up in the Refuge”; “First on the Trail”; “Noisiest Packer of the Day”; “First in to the Next Refuge”; “Fastest Trail Time of the Day”; and the coveted “Least Enjoyable Day.” It is, in fact a secret race that the French are running daily. It turns out that we have a string of Razzy Awards behind us all across The Pyrennes for “Longest Day,” “Latest Start,” and “Slowest Hikers.”
Seeing as how we were the last ones to arrive at the refuge (again) we just had to accept that we were not going to be able to make the professional French hiking circuit. We decided to drown our sorrows in a half liter of beer while talking with Tobias and Martin. We eventually moved inside to avoid the cold and have dinner where we met our first other Americans on the trail–Michael and Laura; a brother and sister team pretending to be a married couple to keep people from hitting on Laura. We had a very enjoyable dinner and conversation at our table of the only 6 English speakers in the refuge until we were “shsssed” so the awards ceremony could be completed.
So glad to hear your updates and see the vistas. Thank you for sharing.