As I have promised, here are a few photos of our trip to the pyrenees.
The morning after our arrival. I must say we somewhat underestimated the climate in the mountains. We came without proper equipment for snow nor climbing; it looked like we’d have to do a lot of that though 
We’ve spent the first night 5250 feet (1600 meters) above the sea level. I couldn’t sleep at night because it was pretty cold. I got up 5am and jogged for about an hour to keep myself warm. I’ve managed to get only 2 hours of sleep that night.
We had a good 4-season tent. Our clothes and sleeping bags weren’t good enough for that freezing night though.
The landscape is pretty impressive: rivers, wateralls, mountains, forests. They say the water is safe to drink at this altitude. I don’t remember having ever drunk such a pure and cold liquid.
That’s some crazy waterfalls…
Finally moving out of the canyon to climb up the snow-covered mountains. It’s something above 1000 feet (300 meters) from bottom to top of the canyon. It may look small on the photo, but is pretty gigantic when you look at it with your own eyes.
Initially our plan was to stay below the snow line. But we underestimated that snow line which appeared to start at a lower altitude than we expected. Besides our originally planned route turned out to be blocked by heavy snow, so our new plan was to cross a few mountains to get to a shelter on the French side of the Pyrenees. Bad idea
As you may notice on the photo we’re by far not prepared to cross snow-covered mountains at high altitudes.
The Incredibles. We’ve spent about 5-6 hours walking up the mountains. Our shoes are simple Nike shoes for running. Nothing fency for the mountains nor snow. As a result our feet turned into ice in no time. We had to stop and use plastic bags to cover our socks and keep the feet a little bit warmer and isolated. That didn’t help much.
It was getting late and we had still a few miles to go and about 1000 feet (300m) to climb. At this moment we were at about 8530 feet (2600m). The snow became pretty soft under the sunrays and the walking bacame much more difficult as our feet sunk 2-3 feet into the snow.
What came next was a perfect horror scenario. A freezing stom with heavy winds appeared in a matter of minutes from the French side. This only meant that we couldn’t cross the French border and get to the shelter because we had still a 1000 feet to climb and that storm would have killed us at that altitude. We were literally cut off from the shelter. No person, no nothing in a radius of many many miles. Just rocks, heavy wind, and the white freezing dessert…
We managed to change our direction and cross two frozen lakes, going down to 7200 feet where the storm wasn’t that strong. We’ve put our tent on some rocks which looked like an iceberg in a white sea. The wind almost broke the tent apart that night. The sounds resembled someone hitting on your head with a sledge hammer… Out clothes, shoes, etc became pure ice… I could literally use my socks as boomerangs in the morning…
Our salvation was a portable butane burner. We could keep ourselves warm at night and dry our clothes/shoes in the morning. We’ve decided to end our trip right there. I guess at one moment everyone of us thought that we were not going to make it.
And then, then came the wall… The only way to go down to the canyon next morning and escape the snow was to climb down “the wall”. It may look small on the photo, but, believe me, it’s so huge and so high it simply takes your breath away.
It’s a long way down to the abyss…
We’ve found some spectacular waterfalls on the way…
The abyss gets closer. It seems like it’s been an hour and we still couldn’t reach it.
And finally came the abyss, “the wall”. Don’t ask me how we managed to climb down with 30 pounds backpacks behind our shoulders. It was the second time on this trip we were so close to the end. Second time lucky…
Nirvana. Relax after some strong emotions as the adrenaline still pumps through our veins… This adventure wasn’t that bad after all…
There are a few lessons to be learned.
- Never ever underestimate the mountains
- Get the right equipment
- Get the right know-how
- Get the right meteo information
You have to respect the mountains, as they can be pretty deadly.
I’m thinking about getting the right equipment, a few books and maybe visit some mountain trekking courses. High Mountain Trekking is a perfect hobby to stay fit, too. It’s incredible how many calories you burn.
… And if you like photography, there are some perfect landscape shots waiting for you
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