We slept next to a river, with no animals or other people nearby. In theory, it had all the ingredients for a perfect night’s sleep. Unfortunately, I kept waking up, concerned a fox was going to visit us in the night and steal something from me.
On paper, today’s hike was one climb up and down. It was supposed to take us 5 hours to climb up and another 3 to get down. I think it took us about 3.5 to go up. On the other side of Col de Cambalés, we had a large snow field to navigate. Thankfully it was at a pretty low angle, so sliding and slipping across the snow ended up being much faster than hopping across rocks. Our descent took us by lakes, one of which we selected for our lunch spot. It was quite windy at lunch and we shared our lake with about 5 sheep. I had my customary dip in the lake and then we read books for another hour in the grass.
We had to descend the rest of the way after lunch to our campsite outside a Rifugio. I prepared for a two hour ordeal but it ended up being shorter than I expected. When we got to the Rifugio we saw Kate sitting in partial shade. Shade was at a premium. We joined her at the table and learned we could charge devices inside, which we did. We bought 2 beverages for 9€, so almost double what we’d normally expect to pay for a coke and a sparkling water, but it was at a remote hut after all. Soon after we arrived, Simon showed up! That was a pleasant surprise because we had hoped he had taken the variant and assumed he’d be a day ahead of us. He did take the variant, and I told him it was a smart move. The variant was an alternative to our past two days, and yesterday was particularly challenging. It turns out, most people we met took the variant. Maybe we’re the ones taking a variant?
We relocated to the river, in the shade of a tree, where we all swam to cool off. Simon had cards so we played a version of Uno. We talked about the trail and what we were planning to do after the trail. We may even meet up with Simon in his hometown sometime after the hike! We saw some other folks, like the Dutch couple who is ending their hike in Gavernie in 2 days. We also saw the Australian couple from a couple of days ago. It was great to see some familiar faces again.
We had our mashed potatoes, ramen, and cheese for dinner. We watched the dozens of people attempt to stake out a camp spot while we finished eating. Then a herd of cows came through and people went crazy. It was like they don’t see cows all day every day, like we do. They were filming and walking over to see them. It was hilarious. They became the center of everyone’s attention. Eventually the sun dipped below the mountains, the wind picked up, and we left to find a campsite. Today was awesome.