Well, we tried something new today. We went peak bagging. For some reason our guidebook seems to suggest or offer up certain peak bagging opportunities. Anyway, we decided to try one of them by climbing Grande Fache from our Rifugio campsite. Since this would be an out and back day, we left most of our stuff behind in Zoë’s backpack inside the Rifugio.
I think we were somewhat determined to beat the time estimate of 6.5 hours for this out and back journey. We climbed up to a pass in a valley we hadn’t seen before. We thought this peak would afford us views of the valley we missed by taking the route we chose for the last 2 days. Apparently the route we took was not common amongst HRP hikers. Most folks went through this other valley, past Grand Fache.
On our climb up to the pass, which we needed to ascend before the peak, we found the valley nice, but less nice than ours from yesterday. We took a brief break at the pass, trying to find some reprieve from the wind that insisted on hammering us all morning. It cooled down the temperature, sure, but it also hurt your ears and gave you a headache.
We started the climb up the Grand Fache from the pass and it quickly turned into a scramble. The guidebook said this route was an F+, a mountaineering rating that meant nothing to us. But it also said it was only 1 hour up from the pass to the summit. We continued to scramble up, and at a certain point our poles became a liability so we stashed them in my pack. There were plenty of loose rocks, sharp edges, and exposure just around the corner. As we climbed we maintained a mental tally of all the things we’d need to do in reverse to get down. The tally started to become worryingly large.
It all came to a head just shy of the summit. We could see it, it wasn’t far away, but it required us to down climb first, before advancing past a part that looked like climbing from our position. Also, when we looked around, the view was quite good. It had already taken us 75 minutes to reach this point. Neither of us really seemed up to tackling the last section before the summit, so we started the long process of descending back down. We passed several people going up as we were coming down. We finally made it down, but I’m certain it took longer to descend than ascend. Once back to the pass, it was relatively straightforward, if not somewhat monotonous, hiking back to the Rifugio.
Back at the Rifugio, we arrived in time for lunch. We set up in a shady spot by the river that we had discovered yesterday and I went for a brief swim before eating lunch. I instantly felt better. After eating we read for probably an hour. We must have been between the time at which people depart and the next day’s people have yet to arrive because it seemed like no one was around. I took the opportunity to do another dip, but this one without clothes. Talk about freeing. Swimming upstream, eyes open, in cool turquoise water while the sun was shining down, fish were swimming around, and water was rushing over rocks, now with the extra danger of trying to finish my swim before someone arrived was the perfect end to our lunch. I got dressed and returned just as a group of people appeared.
After gathering our belongings, we decided to hike on from the lovely Rifugio that had been our home for the past 1.5 days. Our hike took us along a river, through another valley that was also beautiful. We really couldn’t believe how nice this section was. We arrived at a lake, and of course, I took another dip.
We sat in the shade and spent close to an hour trying to figure out how long the next section would take us and therefore how much food we should buy in town. It was complicated by the fact that there are multiple route options, summit opportunities along the way, and the segments are listed in hours, which means deciding how many hours you want to do each day. This isn’t hard, but it takes a lot of work, flipping through pages in the guidebook and the map, trying to sum up various segment lengths and trying to predict if our plan will have us overexerting ourself and hating the section or not. We also need to know when we will finish, so that we can modify our hotel reservation accordingly. That’s also really challenging. We don’t want to pay for days we won’t use, but the Mediterranean beach in August can book out all accommodation. Plus, this hotel is holding our box of non-hiking stuff.
Unfortunately the campsite I picked is surrounded by stinging nettles so we need to be careful when moving around the tent. There are a few sheep on the hillside, but otherwise no one else around. In two days we’ll be in Gavernie, our next town. I’m not sure what our plan is there, but hopefully we can find some WiFi. The scenery of this section has been unbelievable. I’d highly recommend it to others.