Monte Perdido (Lost Mountain) - Our first 3000m

GETTING THERE

My brother Gabi and me traveled by car from Madrid to Torla (Huesca) province. In this nice Alpine town we had dinner, prepared the gear and slept, dreaming on big white mountains.

The next morning we went to the Ordesa National Park where we parked our car and our adventure started.

DAY 1 (April 7, 2006)

Parking of Ordesa National Park (1350m/08h30am)–Goriz Hut (2160m/14h30)

Our intention was to sleep in the Goriz Hut, therefore we applied a calm rhythm to our hike of 8,5 Km to Clavijas del Soaso. It was our first time in this marvelous environment, so we admired the beauty of this glacial valley – U shaped with it’s high & vertical walls, from which the snow began to disappear, the Arazas river and it’s waterfalls, and Monte Perdido appearing and disappearing in the middle of the clouds.


Just before climbing the Clavijas del Soaso we admired the nice waterfall “Cola de Caballo” (Horse Tail). Up in the platform there is a wonderful view of the valley, the river disappearing down in the horizon. The hike from here to the Goriz Hut is easy and takes around 1 hour. We were lucky as we were just a few people there and we heard how in summer gets packed.



We admired the views from the hut, enjoyed an abundant dinner, cards and chat with the other mountaineers and went to sleep with a big smile.

DAY 2 (April 8, 2006)

Goriz Hut (2160m/08h30am)- Monte Perdido (3355m/12h30pm)-Goriz Hut (2160m/15h00pm)-Parking of Ordesa National Park (1350m/19h00pm)

The clouds in the morning predicted a rather complex ascent, though the lack of wind and the moderate temperature encouraged us. Snow was rather soft so we needed to take the snowshoes.




So we departed full of energy up the white way. Our first milestone was the “Lago Helado” (Iced Lake), which at this moment of the year is covered with snow. This place is perfect to make a stop, take a tea, put your crampons and with your ice axe in your hand face the most difficult part of the climbing “La Escupidera” which is a kind of natural slide of snow/ice with 3 exits to hell turning down to your right when climbing. A mistake here can be mortal.



We focused, all our 6 senses at full performance and applied a slow but continuous rhythm. The clouds and fog surrounding us in all the ascent. Finally we reached the “collado” and turned right to reach easily then the Monte Perdido’s summit. Although we regretted the total lack of view we were very happy having reached our first 3000m summit. Nevertheless, we could not calm down as we knew we needed to face “La Escupidera” downwards, so celebrations later.

Up there we relaxed a bit, took a picture and a tea, and back to business.



The descend through La Escupidera was amazing as you could recognize through the deep clouds the slides in your left fading away vertically. So again at full focus we passed the cold doors to hell and reached again the “Lago Helado”. Once there we changed our gears and continued our descend with a quicker pace in spite of the soft snow.

We reached the Goriz Hut where we again took our time to change gear and beer and proceed home.

The pass through Clavijas and the valley was without any problems and we continued admiring this beautiful spot of the Pyrenees.

All in all, a great experience. We celebrated thoroughly our first 3000m in Zaragoza where we made night before heading to Madrid.

Images

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