Four Days in Germany

 Somehow it was close to, or even past midday when I woke up. Maybe it owes to how tightly the blind on the clear door leading to Leo's balcony holds flush to the wall, or the capacity to completely eliminate the ingress of light through his skylight. I don't think I'd ever slept in a room that dark in my life.

The previous day I'd gotten off a train in the city of Koblenz to a balmy autumn afternoon. I started walking down the platform and found Leo within twenty metres or so. We shook hands and started to catch up on the last five months. I'd last seen him the same night I left Australia and he'd stayed in our country several more weeks after I'd left. After travelling the world for a year, mostly in Australia, then for a couple of months in Asia, he'd arrived back in his home town of Koblenz mid year, close to half way through my time in Europe.

I wasn't sure if I'd actually end up going to see him because he lives a long way from anywhere I planned to visit but when Dan started talking about going to Amsterdam I knew visiting Koblenz was obligatory- I might not get another chance for years and in the scheme of things, what is a the couple of hundred Australian dollars that was needed to make it happen?

We left the station and I immediately noticed “the feel” my previous experiences in Germany seemed to have for me. Koblenz is quite and tranquil, almost too much. We walked 40mins in the afternoon sun, me only carrying the small pack with my laptop and a small amount of clothes that I'd taken from the car before leaving the Netherlands. We walked through quite residential neighbourhoods before crossing a river and entering his town, who's name now escapes me. I probably should write blog posts closer to the actual events, not a whole month after.

In my time in Koblenz we didn't do too much. On one particularly sunny day we went to the city, climbed to the viewing deck of the statue that sits on the confluence of the Rhine and Mosel, encircled by the flags of Germany's regions and took the cable car to the fortress. Leo told me about how the cable car was built temporarily for a flower show after which they had every intention of taking it down but after a large number of people signed a petition and the case worked its way through the German court system it was decided that it was going to stay until 2020, then it would be reviewed again.

The area has a relaxed feel about it, that's for certain. The breadth of the Rhine works it was down lush valleys, passing terraced vineyards and many small communities, each with a church or sometimes more, built in a distinctive architectural style. Leo's very proud of his city and ensured that I saw as much of the city and the surrounding region during my stay.

It definitely is a beautiful region and feels relaxed like few others do but I lived there I think I'd struggle to find things to do. For starters, the topography's gentle. I can't imagine living in an area of gently rolling hills, flat water rivers and generally conservative culture. I don't think I could live separated from the outdoor lifestyle. At home its something I love and it really keeps my life in check like.

On one night we went to a Shisha bar after trying to go to a wine festival that had stopped weeks before with a group of Leo's friends, and on another we went to the twenty fifth birthday of a Turkish friend of Leo and his sister, followed by cocktails in town. Other than that we didn't do much at all of significance, just small things around the city and relaxed. The last time I spent time in this kind of way was months before in Trento, Italy.

On my second last day in Germany the weather was incredibly dull, it didn't even drizzle but was somewhat oppressive, like those days we get every winter in Tasmania. We went for a walk and played a little soccer, simply to get us out of the house. The following day Dan arrived in slightly less bleak conditions. He stayed for about half an hour, I said goodbye to Leo's family and thanked them for their hospitality before Leo saw us off at the curbside. Just as darkness was falling we entered Luxembourg, I think the thirty-fifth country in the world that I have visited. We bought a full tank of fuel at the lower taxed prices offered in the tiny principality before moving on into France, marking the beginning of our longest straight section of driving yet.

The Benelux

Some of Dan's friends happened to be finishing their European trip in Amsterdam at the same time we were a fair way north. Dan was going to go by whatever means he had to. By the time we'd been in Fontainebleau a couple of days I had already decided that I'd join him in the Benelux for a night or two before heading south into Rhineland to spend time with a German friend I met the previous summer in Australia.

We packed up our things and left Fontainebleau late in the day, the last of the good light diminishing as we hit the inticrate web of roads on the eastern outskirts of Paris. It might be logical with a GPS but with pre-loaded phone we made a couple of wrong turns which in turn, owing to the lack of exits, each cost us about 50km. Oh well.

At around 11 we found ourselves hunting for WiFi spots to recalculate our route but that proved too difficult so we resorted to guessing. It turned out to be the right option and after one false turn that nearly sent us in the complete opposite direction and a 300m reversing job on the entry lane to a freeway the blue dot that marked our location was finally hovering on a road that was also marked in blue!

Once we were about 100km clear of Paris everything started to look up. We were able to drive 50-150km distances without having to worry about which turn to take at junctions, and even when we did have to it was straightforward. Very late that night we crossed the border into Belgium. After a little more time we were skirting the outskirts of Brussels. The roads are great in Belgium and completely free, at least to our knowledge, so that particular country spares you the constant game of trying to avoid the ridiculously expensive tolls that come when you see the classic blue highway sign.

After what might have been around 2hrs in Belgium we found camping somewhere towards the far border of the country, a mere stones throw from Antwerp. After the previous night we woke up pretty late and it was 1pm or so before we were in the city.

I love Belgium. I love the distinct style of architecture and how it's been shaped, in a way, by the flat, low expanses they've had available for building. I love the fusion of elements and probably the result on the city streets of having a few extra dollars in the city budget to throw around.

I'd been to Brussels almost a decade ago, when I was much younger, and can remember feeling the same way, even then.

We got a very central park just by Antwerp's main square which happens to have a very attractive looking outdoor bouldering set up, at the time crawling with tens of kids, daunted over by the imposing facade of the city's grand cathedral. We must have spent around two hours in the city, just wandering, not doing much in particular. We walked through the squares fringed by long, thin and somewhat grand buildings and through numerous small alleyways before meeting the sea. The military were running a bridging training operation which was interesting to see.  

The city in its very centre feels grand and cultured like many in Europe but as soon as you pop out by the water it takes on a very industrial feel. The line of buildings simply stops, blocked by one of the city's main roads, and on the other side you have the waterway giving egress to commercial ships from the port to the sea.

We somehow managed to get out of the city relatively quickly without burning too much unnecessary fuel which is always an achievement. Before long we were crossing the Dutch border, announced by the typical blue signs with the circle of stars representing EU member states, telling us we were entering “Nederland”, the name of the country in its native language.

Antwerp's Waterfront

Interesting sculpture...

We saw many signs to Rotterdam but few to Amsterdam. It was a guessing game each time the highway diverged, sometimes informed a little but what we could see on the route we'd plotted the day before. Despite the uncertainty we never took a false turn. We arrived at Amsterdam with ease, entering the city fairly late in the afternoon with no plan whatsoever.

We parked in the centre and I walked along one of the city's main canals for a bit, taking in the atmosphere that makes this city so famous. I could easily live there for a few months, getting around by bike like almost everyone else. The city is incredibly flat, like many in the Netherlands, something that has facilitated one one of the highest per capita rates of bicycle ownership in the world.

We went to McDonald's of all places with the sole intention of using their WiFi to book some accommodation. This was a tedious process but we got it done and plotted the route to our accommodation from our current location on my phone. Amsterdam's streets gave us no problems and five or six canal crossing within three kilometres later we were at our accommodation, a stones throw from Vondelpark.

El País de las Bicicletas

Once we were checked in we had showers before heading out. We got pizza locally and had a few beers by the canal, taking in the ambience of the city. I'd been sick since the day before and wasn't really feeling up to much at all so we headed back to the hostel where the stuffiness and heat of the room aggravated my existing congested condition.

After checkout the next day we went for a walk to check out what Vondelpark had to offer. We found a supermarket selling products at highly elevated city prices, all but one thing. I've never seen it anywhere else in the world but they had a machine in the supermarket that makes fresh orange juice right in front of your eyes! At three euros a litre it was pretty damn cheap too, and exactly what I needed for my raging cold.

We had a while to kill before Dan's friends turned up at five that day so we went for a drive, found easy parking and had a slackline in a park in front of a police station. We cooked up a big meal and stayed there for a few hours, just relaxing on crash pads. At one point the police came over, curious, asking questions about the slackline in perfect English. Everyone in the Netherlands speaks perfect English. Like in many other nations with small languages they realise the importance of learning others to a high level.

Later that day we went into the part of the centre where we'd been the day before and got the car impounded on a parking technicality that we had no idea about. After a very scenic six kilometre walk and a 373.60 euro fee, collected by a pleasant Dutch woman with relatives in Tasmania, the car was free. Lovely.

We arrived at the accomodation Dan's friends had booked about an hour later than we planned, feeling dejected after a huge sum of money slipped through our fingers due to nothing more than bad luck. Money can come and go very easily. But really, what is a Euro trip without fines? I think Europe and fines are two things that just simply go together, its the way of the world.

The accommodation, at 26 euros a night was quite expensive for what it was and in the end we didn't even end up sleeping there. After a few drinks, a tram trip into the centre and a very interesting night we ended up staying in an apartment in some random corner of the city. I still have no idea where.

I woke up that morning and quickly got Dan and Steve up, paranoid about not being able to check out on time. We found a tram station and managed to catch the right one, but in the complete opposite direction. When our two hour tram journey through the vast majority of Amsterdam finally deposited up where we needed to be it was already right on check out time. I was exhausted. I went upstairs, messaged Leo in Germany and took a shower. I packed a couple of things for my three days in Germany in my small day pack. I think by the time I left it was an hour after checkout. I already knew it was a small penalty fee for late check out and really didn't care. In the end they didn't even impose it.

Dan drove me to the train station, somehow easily navigating there through the maze of similar looking, canal lined streets. He dropped me when we were stationary at a set of lights, us both now well and truly scared of inner city parking.

I easily found the platform and somehow even had time to kill before my train. Walking through the station I found another orange juice machine and bought some chips in a cone, my first food in close to 24hrs. After being sick for the last couple of days and a sleepless night I was practically passed out as the train started moving and I can barely remember the signs at the stations starting to be written in German, not Dutch.

Emancipation

Tensions were running high. We sat at the WiFi spot most of the day, killing time on useless little things to pass the hours. The tension grew as 7pm neared.

A couple of days before we had fixed the shipping issue with our part and it had arrived the following day after spending close to a week sitting in a postal depot in the nearby town of Annecy. The receptionist, who we now knew well after countless chats, had promised the car would be ready the evening of the following day.

My feelings were mixed as we walked into the shop. Was it going to work? Neither of us had any idea.

Two weeks before we had also thought we would be leaving as we walked into the shop. A week before that she told us the ignition coil was “ashes” but when we walked in she looked at us with pity and simply said, “Big, big problem...”. That's when we found out it was actually the distributor, a much more expensive part, that was done. Now the distributor, which we bought second hand off eBay was finally here. And the suspense was killing us.

We walked in and she smiled. I made a little small talk and she announced that it was indeed working well. But then she said, “Big problem.” Uh- oh. One of the brake discs was considerably worn and she was compelled to install a new one.

Instead, being a nice, reasonable woman, she let us leave without having a new one installed at the small cost of having “forbidden to drive” written in both English and French on our form, mooting our insurance and making us liable for any accidents we caused. We would have to drive pretty conservatively...

We returned to the campsite and packed everything up, seeing it for the last time, which had been home for three weeks, just as the last light was escaping from the sky.

We were back on the road! For the first hundred kilometres or so we followed the roads I had followed in three weeks earlier but from then on the roads were all new. We ended up camping somewhere on the outskirts of Auxerre in an apple grove at sometime after three am, exhausted.

The newly acquired flashing light... enough said. 

We stoked up in the city the following morning after a late start and drove the remaining couple hundred kilometres to Fontainebleau, the surrounding forests home to the birthplace of European bouldering and still some of the most famous blocks in the world. The sport has such a standing in France that circuits have been created, coloured arrows accompanied by a number, the former suggesting difficulty and the later providing a simple fluid order that the problems should be climbed in.

As we arrived in the provincial French town of Fontainebleau itself we saw several training yards for horses, a huge grand chateau and many up-market curbside restaurants but no sign of the bouldering. After difficulties finding anywhere we could sit and get charge and WiFi we took off again, deciding to try a slightly different tact in finding the blocks- guessing. How hard could it be, it's a renowned, world class destination for the sport right?

It turns out none of the iconic sectors are obvious from the road side. Sometimes you can gather there's boulders in the area but you can rarely actually see them from the road. We drove around for around 30mins and climbed at the first one we saw.

The climbing is definitely interesting. Apart from the classic, powerful slopers Fontainebleau is so famous for we found huge water jugs on some of the top outs and all kinds of tiny, intricate and complex holds that really beg the question of how they were actually formed. The formations are like nothing I've seen elsewhere in the world.

The next day, back in town, we finally found a bar with WiFi and did more research. We visited l'elephant, one of “font's” most iconic sectors, characterised by huge boulders in a beach like environment and three or four other sectors over the five day period we stayed. We mostly had good weather but the friction was mainly atrocious, particularly on the footing. It just can't be trusted.

Chateau Fontainebleau

It's common to see tens and tens of people in the forest in any given sector at any given time of day, from families to groups of friends that would easily be pushing sixty. This forest really is a thing of pride for the French and its awesome to see such a huge range of people enjoying a sport that would be considered “extreme” in many parts of the world. Some people are simply out for a walk. Families stroll nowhere in particular, their kids darting in and out of the maze of boulders. However, I'd have to say that well over half the people you meet in the forest have crash pads, an unmistakeable sign that they're there to boulder. Is great to see how much the people from the surrounding area appreciate their forest.  

Europe really teaches you how to find parks...

Inbetween

Late in the day, just as the heat was beginning to wear off I dropped Pablo off at the bus station. Then I drove the ten odd kilometres back to the campsite and read, reclined on a crash pad in the late afternoon sun.

This and similar rituals went on for three days. Early on the fourth day I packed up, said good bye to the nice family that run the camping on the outskirts of Sabiñanago and began my 1050km drive. Money had hit my travel card and I now had the capacity to do so.

I drove through several broad, silty valleys in the lower Pyrenees before the valley my route took me through started heading towards the French border. Before long it started ascending rapidly, making progress in earnest. After a while my way was impeded by a huge traffic jam, brought on by the closure of one side of the tunnel that crosses the main divide of the range and gives passage between France and Spain.

Despite elevation the bite of the sun was only impeded by intermitten cloud. I rolled the windows down, letting the air flow through.

Perhaps ten minutes passed before the light turned green and the cars from the Spanish side began to crawl through like ants, closely following the fifty speed limit, capitulating to the threat of the “control radar”.

I emerged on the French side to find a thick fog, preventing visibility further than ten metres in front. This was a strange experience coupled with the steep, unprotected drop on the southern side of the road. As I got lower the mist thinned, revealing a cold, dreary day in complete contrast to the day I had left behind in Spain.

That night, numerous wrong turns and sketchily narrow country roads later, I camped on the outskirts if Toulouse.

Open road... I saw a lot of this...

There's little to say about the day that followed. I drove twelve odd hours to meet Dan with only a couple of brief stops. I found one particularly nice French city, towered over by a huge bronze statue overlooking an impressive church but I can remember little else of note.

I arrived in Bourg Saint Maurice, a mere stone's throw from the Italian border and a long, long way from Sabiñanago at about 8:30 that night. I snuck up to Dan's tent and tapped the outside. At first he thought it was nothing, calling out initially but putting his headphones back in after no response. I kept tapping and after a minute or so he finally emerged to see what the hell was tapping on his tent. He was pretty surprised to see me, not expecting me to arrive until the following day.

We had a few drinks and spent some time talking to the members of a local metal band that were sharing the campsite. Before we knew it the sun was rising.

Needless to say we didn't do much that day. Dan showed me some of the surrounds and we just chilled out, catching up on what each other had been doing over the last month we spent apart with me in Spain and him in Bourg Saint Maurice paddling.

The next day we headed into town to rent Dan a via Ferrata kit to take on some of the crazy exposed routes fringing the town. And we never made it out.

We got in the car after leaving the shop, excited to venture into the mountains. Then the engine wouldn't turn over. I don't know why this shit always happens to us but it simply does. Five futile minutes of attempting to start it gave way to pushing the car to a nearby garage against the traffic down the town's major street. That in turn gave way to three weeks of complete redundancy, doing almost nothing at all.

Each day we made the twenty minute walk to town and WiFi and more often than not a further fifteen minute walk to the supermarket. After a week or so we bought a slackline and that also became a daily ritual, set up in the park by the river. However that was also soon to end. One day men with chainsaws and excavators turned up out of the blue and felled this once tranquil place of all it's trees, right down to the river side.

Our newest form of entertainment

A small fraction of our beer consumption during our stay

The new discovery; wine strength generic beers

Several times in that three weeks we learned the very definition of despair. After only a week stranded we went to pick up the car at our appointed time only to find out they had misdiagnosed the problem and our actual problem was going to cost 1300 euros to fix. We most certainly weren't going to pay that.

A section of the daily walk to the WiFi Spot

We went to our WiFi spot and deliberated what to do. Move continents? Start travelling by train? We had no idea.

After three days we ordered the part. It could only be shipped to the UK so we sent it through a friend who managed to send it to completely the wrong pace. It was a long two weeks not knowing if the part was even going to work and a period I would really love not to relive. Feeling both the summer and your time abroad recede before your eyes with little you can do about it is far from pleasant.  

Back in the Mountains; A Traverse of Vignemale

With strain I sit up from where I lay on the hard, concrete floor. The door is slightly ajar, a thin film of light flooding into the confines of the poorly lit space. I pull on some shorts and yank the heavy metal door open just enough to squeeze out. The grass is soft against the soles of my feet, the sun blinding, warm on my chest. I moved around sluggishly, dragging myself to the creek to get some water, becoming a little lighter on my feet with each step. As I get back Pablo is just waking up and poking his head out the door revealing the day nature has produce for us. I lay on the compact grass, watching the small cumulus clouds race the streaks of cirrus through the sky, feeling a little humbled by the towering masses of the mountains on either side of the valley.

* * *

30 Hours Earlier

The sound of music coming from the vibrating phone by my head easily awakens me from my shallow, intermittent sleep. 6:15. Time to go. It takes a few minutes to muster the strength to wrench myself entirely from my sleeping bag. Its still pitch black outside. I frantically stuff some things in a bag; mountain clothes, plenty of food and the other small items that a big day in the mountains demands. I tuck my crampons inside my helmet to try and guard the contents of my pack, placing them both at the very top. After strapping our ice axes to the outside we're off, heading for the barranco, a steep creek of sorts from where our ascent will begin.

The route through the hard stuff

Standing at the bottom it looks huge. And I probably can't see the whole expanse. The map shows we have almost one and a half kilometres of elevation to gain before we hit the rocky ridge. It seems almost laughable to me, watching the silhouettes of the mountains gradually gain more detail. We arrived well after dark the night before and now we are leaving the valley well before it is light. 

 

The traverse route; Refugio Labaza to Baysellance

We start ascending steadily. I watch the terrain change beneath my feet from pine roots, the sedges, to succulents and finally to rock. As the valley narrows I watch a family of ibexs dart up the cliffs, gaining perhaps 200m in minutes, sending loose rock down after them. At around 2700m the walking changes completely to rock. I walk up steep slabs, rendered clean by harsh winter after harsh winter.

The cairns are patchy at best. It feels like I'm back in Tassie all over again, having to do my own navigation and make route choices without the constant aid of tracks or other markers. But that's how I like it. I love the feeling of being completely immersed in the landscape I'm walking in, when its just you and the mountains and there's few signs of past visits to deter your eyes from the grandeur of the landscape.

Below the huge, smooth headwall that seemed to be made out of marble there are some walled bivvy sites which could have easily been big enough for small tents. My eyes follow the wall to the left, probing the mountains for any sign of the mystical corridor that would deposit us on the ridge forming the border between France and Spain. Nothing. Everything blends in from this angle. I guess it'll become apparent as we get higher. My eyes move down, following the curving mass of ice down the narrow gully. It seems the sun has only just hit it. We're making good progress.

After a long-ish break I shed the layers I put on to ward off the cool of the morning and attach my crampons. The glacier starts metres away. I start moving quickly on slopes of about 35 degrees, making sure my feet are far enough apart that there is no chance they will get caught on one another. As the gully narrows it gives the prospective climber a choice; a quite narrow and steep piece of ice, standing like a solidly reinforced bridge within the gully itself, or a section of easy rock, of course done in crampons. I took the ice very carefully before moving onto a little rock where I had to.

 

The glacier remained steep and got us higher quickly. In one point the slopes must have been at least 50 degrees and without any kind of anchors I was glad it was short lived. I firmly shoved my ice axe into the now semi soft glacier, kicking in steeps as I went. Lower down I thought I had seen a cairn. Turns out I was right. A huge cairn sits on a stretch of precariously loose rock between glaciers and once you are there the chimney itself becomes painfully obvious. 

Two eagles circle overhead, battling for my attention over the French grade III rock that is to come. Maybe the crux is higher up....

After a brief break I'm moving up the tight, enclosed corridor, staying well ahead of Pablo in different gullies in case I dislodge loose rock. Each move feels easy and has no exposure.

The chimney

As I pull myself up a small overhang my head suddenly emerges above the ridges. Wow. The bulk of the Pyrenees to the north is stretched out before me, rendered desolate by the harshness of each winter and dotted by small lakes nesting in amongst the rocky facades. My heart begins to beat a little faster. We are close. 

I can now see the two eagles circling in the valley on the opposite side of the ridge, gracefully cutting lines through the air far below, revealing how far we have come. The valley of Bujaruelo where we started now appears tiny, as if its merely the small groove in the landscape formed by a mountain creek. The ridge ahead is like a knife edge. I step softly, trying to be conscious of the loose rock I can see lining the tops of big drops on the surrounding slopes.

The cairns persist for a little while before disappearing for good. The ridge is relinquished for slopes of loose shale, a game of picking the line that's going to cause the least problems. When climbing European mountains loose rock is an innate part of the experience. I have never seen scrambling routes on good, clean rock.

I see too climbers, carrying rope on the ridgeline. Knowing I'm so close I can almost touch it I speed up and in less than 50m I'm standing on a small, shaley summit, finally on the border of the two countries. The Glacier d'Ossoue stretches out before me in a bowl ringed by a rocky ridgeline, one of the greatest remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees and quickly receding.

The ground shifts below my feet as I descend the rocky ridge to the edge of the glacier, chunks of rock tumbling onto its upper flanks. At least three parties are on the same ridge. I can see the silhouettes of two figures illuminated against the harsh alpine sun, victoriously standing on central peak. I can see another party of its rocky slopes and another in the saddle beneath it. And plenty on Vignemale itself.

This area is so well frequented that it's obvious where everyone walks on the glacier. There are no crevasses or steep slopes to excite. Only flat, easy walking and in five minutes the loose slabs of Vignemale's normal route extend into the sky above us.

It felt a little annoying to be putting crampons on and off for such a stretch. By the looks of the footprints in the snow many don't even bring crampons when coming from France. This would be incredibly hard work with 2.5km or so of glacier walking. Although the glacier seems to be fairly shallow and crevasse free the slopes are steep and your feet would be sliding everyone.

The summit being this close only pushes me harder. I climb up past a party that are using a rope to come back down, worried about the lack of features in the rock. I take a more direct route that most, following what appears to be limestone rather than the distinctive red rock. I see several more parties that aren't using protection but are roped up glacier style. From the looks of things their days would get very interesting if one of them was to slip. The other would be taken with them.

Most people just climb free, despite a few sections of loose rock. This is what I had chosen to do too and didn't once feel uncomfortable. The climb is technically easy and for anyone used to even Tassie's scrambly mountains it is non-problematic.

As I arrive on the rounded, compact summit the bulk of the Pyrenees takes shape, extending for hundreds of kilometres in each direction, the spine dividing Spain and France. The iconic mass of Monte Perdido is easily visible, deceptively close, with the highest summits of the Pyrenees beyond. I think of Andorra, nestled somewhere on the other side of those peaks, where I had been weeks earlier. Close if you're a bird but otherwise a huge distance away, guarded by battalions of serrated ridges of loose rock and deep valleys.

We spend more than an hour on top, intoxicated by the view. I swear I could spend all day on top of a mountain, just probing its nuances with my eyes, somehow never becoming bored. The occasional bird might pass by, sweeping and diving through a few circles above my head, momentarily pulling my attention away from the landscape. 

The broken red rock poses a bit more of a problem on the way down but still we arrive at the end of the rock and the start of the glacier quickly, strapping on crampons once again. The descent is somewhat tiresome. It goes without saying but the landscape is spectacular as per usual, however the walking feels somewhat monotonous after what we've already done. The glacier seems to go on forever. In total it might stretch on for two or three kilometres, terminating at around the same elevation as Baysellance Refuge, the most common starting point for an assault on Vignemale and the direction from which every person started that day but us. Nobody else climbed via the Corredor de Moscova, the far less frequented ascent route that we had chosen to ascend, starting from Spain, not France.

As we pass Baysellance a quick check of the time reveals it's after six. Daylight is receding. We've now been on the go twelve hours and have quite a few more to go before we can sleep.

100m of climbing is followed by 500m of descent. The tracks are great but that kind of up and down after a long day is enough to break anyone. The mountains are already illuminated before we start descending, shrouded in a warm glow. The north face of Vignemale sits entirely in shade, making in ominous, threatening, fully accentuating the size of the fissures in the steep glacier guarding its feet. 

 

On reaching the valley floor, another 500m of ascent awaits, a major mental challenge of the exhaustion levels we are now wearing. We sit down, the sun entirely gone from the valley, and rug up. We eat quickly, frantically almost, but then can't compel ourselves to get up. We linger ten minutes more, savouring the respite from standing.

The first few steps are a struggle. Then the food begins to kick in. It had been far too long since I'd snacked. As I get higher I feel stronger and as the grasses are relinquished for rock I begin to get excited. Before long I am standing above Bujaruelo once again. I watch Pablo climb the last few metres, a smile growing on my face.

We don't linger. We quickly dash down the winding path benched into the scree, marked by cairns. The sun set a reasonable time ago. By the time we reach the very bottom the light is well and truly on its way out, meaning it is around 9:45. We move faster, wanting to make as much progress before the light disappears altogether.

We were loosing the track even in the fading light. Once darkness sets in things are no different. What we thought would be an easy dash back down the valley turned into an off track walk in pitch darkness. The sky is completely clear but there is no moon. Few stars. We listen to the tumbling and falling of the creek, serving as a guide to deliver us back at Refugio Labaza, home.

The walking is open and easy, aside from a few steep slopes. It takes hours, we're moving so slowly. A few times we think we've passed it until I look at the mountains and think about what the alignment is like from the Refugio. The walk seems to drag on. And on.

Then we almost stumble on the rocks bordering a large creek. I almost start running. I recognise this creek. I recognise the valley it is pouring from. We have been here before. This is where we started climbing eighteen hours earlier. Eighteen hours.

I force the door open, a stiff, heavy piece of metal trying to bar me from sleeping, probably waking up the “neighbours”. Oh well. That door scrapes loudly no matter what.

I stumble in and find my sleeping bag. Despite the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements I'm out like a light. It's now 1:30. And we left camp at 6:45. Talk about a productive day.

* * *

Walking through the gates marking the end of the valley felt surreal. After the previous day we drag our feet, moving very slowly, nursing the pads on the bottom of our feet, or what is left of them. We had woken up at close to midday, no real surprise considering the events of the previous “day”. With only a kilometre left to walk we stop. I strip down to only my shorts and dash for the water under the bridge, lazily caressing the steep sides. I come to a tree hanging over the water and don't bother progressing any further. I simply throw myself in head first, cleanly breaking the perfection of the mineral blue pool.