Birthday Calories

Although section 4 of the HRP only has one staffed refuge, Klaas and I decided when we were making our plan in Arties that we’d take maximum advantage, to reduce the weight of food we had to carry. As it happened, the refuge fitted perfectly with my birthday, so yesterday at about 14:00 we arrived at Refugi de Certascan and started eating.

After a lunch of salad, lentil casserole, canneloni and cake, we spent the afternoon chatting, then had soup, pasta and a rather bizarre course of sausages and crisps, before finishing off with a chocolate dessert. This morning we had a decent breakfast and left with an excellent picnic lunch, so altogether saved ourselves the weight of four meals.

During yesterday afternoon a group of three English walkers arrived, so we spent most of the afternoon chatting to them. One of them, Steven, lives down the road from me in Fulham, is a doctor at Charing Cross A&E and treated me earlier this year! So much for the wilderness…

Yesterday’s walk passed through a bizarre hamlet called Noarre, which has no road access. It appeared to be totally deserted, but apparently most of the houses are holiday homes now so that’s not too surprising. Still, we wondered how they get anything there, and whether they have any electricity.

We had a long climb up from Noarre, then crossed over Coll de Certascan (2,605m) and began the descent to the refuge. Not far from the top we reached the biggest and steepest snowfield we’d seen since we sent our crampons home. I lead it rather nervously, and the tension wasn’t helped when I turned round to see Klaas sliding towards me on his arse. I had a couple of nanoseconds to consider the etiquette involved with stepping out of the way and watching him accelerate towards the rocks but, before I’d reached a conclusion, he crashed into me and came to a halt.

There’s been no snow to deal with today, but we’ve climbed down the beautiful gorge of the Riu de Romedo from Estany Romedo de Baix, then up through some welcome shade in a forest. The sun has been behind clouds for much of the afternoon, and as we dropped down from Coll de Sellente (2,485m) to the Baborte lakes where we’re camping, it began spitting. We hid in the refuge for half an hour or so while it rained quite heavily, but there were already 18 people vying for the 9 beds, so when the rain stopped we set up the tents and have now eaten and washed, so all is well with the world.