| Distance | 18 km |
| Time | 6hrs 15 mins |
| Difficulty | 1050m climbing |
| Good for | First bit of High Pyrenees |
The GR11’ers return for another year to walk a few stages of the path. This year sees the return of Andrew from year 1 (stages 1-4) and Dom from last year (stages 5-8). Making up the fifth member of the team is Peter, this far new to the GR11 path.
Because of a lack of available accommodation at the end of stage 9 proper, we are doing the 9A variant today, and following up with the 10A variant tomorrow. By the end of 10A we will be in the same place as the end of the normal stage 10. Stages 9 and 9A follow the same path initially for the first kilometre or so, and here is us at the sign post where stage 9 splits in two.
The upshot of us taking 9A was that today’s walk was significantly longer than it would’ve been, but it does make for a shorter day tomorrow. The 9A route climbed to the left of a spine of mountains to the right, the furthest away being Achar d’Alano.
As we approached the top of the climb at about 2000m elevation there were patches of ice visible on our path. Here’s Jason and I standing on the icy path.
To our right there were further patches of ice under the jagged rocks. Given the heat which is over 30 C, the ice must’ve been quite thick from the most recent winter.
The patches to our right were populated with a herd of ibex trying to cool down and drink in the summer heat.
At the shoulder of the mountain, we were met with a buffeting wind and what looked like an impossible descent – almost vertical – in front of us. At least we were still on the path as the red & white paint splashes on the rocks attested.
Some of the path had metal roots concreted into the rock face via Ferrata style which were very welcome as we would’ve never made it down otherwise.
Having descended the worst bit we were able to walk along the valley floor to find some shade where we had a stop for lunch. After lunch we carried on the fairly gentle descent until we hit another seemingly vertical drop this time covered in gravel snake down into the woods.
This part of the descent was extremely hard on the legs and we were all very pleased to come out of the woods and onto the road.
Having had another break for a drink the group unanimously decided that the last 5 km to our overnight stop would be better reached by following the road rather than the official GR 11.1 path. After about seven hours of walking we finally made it to the campsite. I think we were all in agreement that this had been an extremely hard day on the feet!
Life Two 