Wow, what a hard day. We woke up but entertained what I like to call forbidden sleep, which is the best sleep of the night. It’s the sleep you get after your alarm goes off, you’re too tired, so you decide to sleep a bit more even though it is forbidden by your original plan when you set that alarm. In our case, waking up later just means more hours hiking in the hotter part of the day, but starting feeling rested is also important.
We were out by 7, instead of the intended 6:30 and it didn’t matter. We ran into Simon at the bottom of the hill and chatted briefly with him. He’s doing the HRP too but he wants to avoid anything too technical. Today there was an alternate that would allow you to avoid the two passes, and another to avoid an exposed section. In hindsight, I hope he took the alternate to at least avoid the passes. We also saw a woman with a cat on a leash and wearing a cat backpack.
We climbed a lot and the first part was in the shade. Then a cloud came and gave us more shade. That cloud was an MVP. We got to some lakes, which don’t allow swimming. The entire Pyrenees National Park, which spans something like 100km on the HRP, forbids swimming in lakes. It seems like the only thing they do allow, according to the signage, is levitating beneath a Pringles chip, aka paragliding. But you know, they have roads, dams, and grazing animals within the park. Not to mention huts in remote areas that bring in tons of hikers who do all sorts of things like sink showers and sink laundry. So if you like swimming in alpine lakes and plan to hike the HRP, prepare to be discreet about it.
On our way up to our first pass, we had to cross our first snow field. It would have been much easier with micro spikes but it was ok. The two passes we did today, Col du Palas and Port du Lavedan, each had snow components. We were able to navigate around one, and the second one, mid way on it I realized I should have taken a different line to avoid the most consequential area of the snow field. I quickly diverted off the snow and finished the traverse on the much more stable-footing talus.
Descending down our second pass was hard. The angle was very steep which wiped us out. Then there was the grass, which grew in tussocks on a slope and was both slippery and spiky. If you stepped on a patch, half the time you’d find yourself quickly sliding off, and onto an uneven patch of dirt somewhere below. If you happened to use your hands to arrest yourself, their spiky nature would make you regret it. We got down to a lake midway through our descent and took a break. We had been eyeing it from above for a while as it was completely empty and therefore perfect for a swim. Sure enough, as soon as we arrive, a family of 5 shows up. Fuck it, I swam in front of them. I then dozed in the direct sun for an hour since there was no shade. The lake had snow still on its banks so it was freezing. That, combined with the breeze made lying in the sun tolerable.
On our way down, I was thinking about how difficult does something need to be to feel rewarding for finishing it, and what is too far? Today was hard. On the HRP we often look at our days in terms of hours because the other metrics, distance and elevation, would be too disappointing. Today was 9 hours and felt pretty hard. How many days like that before it stopped being fun overall? We have free time, we could be doing anything, so why choose to do this? Or rather, how long should we choose to do it if it got too hard? We’re certainly not near quitting, but thinking back to the first week, did I need to do that? We know the end of this hike is supposed to be super hot and dry, so should we just cut that part out? I had lots of questions but not a lot of answers.