Section Three - Complete
After his easier day yesterday, Klaas was back on top form for the final stage of section three, while Lucy, Ross and I were all nursing our injuries from yesterday’s beautiful but damaging walk along the lakeside. None of the injuries were serious enough to slow us down much though, so we made pretty good time apart from an unsheduled Compeed realignment stop.
There was only 600m of ascent in today’s route, which is comparatively little. We climbed up from Refugi de la Restanca past more amazing lakes and over three cols, then began the descent towards the stage end at Salardu. The first 400m or so were pretty tough, with some steep sections and some huge boulder fields to cross, but eventually we made it down to Refugi de Colomers, beside yet another beautiful lake. The guide said that our brief visit to the Parc Nacional d’Augüestortes would inspire us to return and it’s right - it’s an absolutely stunning place.
We lunched overlooking the refuge, then climbed down below a dam and soon reached a dirt track. Lucy and Ross thought Klaas was joking when he said we had about 10km on the road, but he wasn’t - we were heading down to a village for the end of the section, and the route out of the high mountains was a long descent down a track. The views were still amazing, and personally I was quite happy not to have to concentrate so hard on where every step was going!
We paused at a nice hotel halfway down for a drink and an ice-cream, then carried on down and eventually reached Salardu. We’ve actually taken the bus a few km down the valley to Arties as there’s no campsite in Salardu, but this hasn’t broken my rules - we’ll be getting the bus back to exactly the same place when we restart!
Before we consider any more walking though, we have a couple of rest days to think about. The first thing we have to do is finalise our plan for the next section - we have two guidebooks with different routes, so we need to work out which one looks best. Either way, we’re not likely to pass any shops for the next 8-10 days and there aren’t many refuges, so we’ll be carrying a lot of food, which needs to be planned carefully and then bought. As well as that there’s the dull stuff like washing clothes, and we may also need to buy Klaas some new boots as his are beginning to look like they may not make it to Banyuls. Tomorrow though, will probably be mainly spent by the campsite’s pool, enjoying the sun with Lucy and Ross before they head home later in the week.
It’s been interesting having some friends join us, experiencing what life’s like on the trail. Lucy commented that she was amazed how physical it was - she’d thought it would be normal hill-walking and was quite surprised to find every muscle in her body aching! They’ve had a tough few days though, climbing Aneto on Saturday then dealing with some very rough and bouldery trails yesterday and today.