Greetings everyone. Long-time reader, first-time poster.
I am in Europe until mid-August travelling on a Eurail pass and want to have as many different and interesting mountain experiences as possible. I am on an extremely tight budget, partially balanced out by my being content with extremely meager accommodations.
Basically, I am looking for places that can be reached within a day's hike from a rail station where there is primitive shelter (literally, any kind of roof over my head) and the cost is either free or under about 15 euro.
What follows is a visual and written summary of the trip so far. A bit of a slog to read, I know, and some of you weill no doubt snort in derision at some of the really stupid decisions I've made along the way. But what the hell, overall I've had a fantastic experience so far.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33865266@N02/
Part 1
The flight from Chicago to Sweden was remarkably not tedious. SAS has an in-seat entertainment system that allows one to rotate among about 20 films showing continuously, a mix of classics, art films, and recent hits. I watched Dark Knight, Network, most of Harry Potter 7, and some of Notes on a Scandal. And the food was by far the best I've ever had on an airline. Also, we flew over the western Norway fjords, and there was a camera view from under the plane that made me giddy with anticipation..
We were ushered through immigration immediately on arrival at Arlanda, even those of us who were transferring for planes to other countries. Because of the seven-hour layover, I decided to activate the pass and take a train to Uppsala. That was low-key fun, Uppsala is a pleasant university town with a large amount of park space along a river and a wide hill rising nearby with a reconstructed castle and fortifications. After a little over two hours in Uppsala I took a train south to Stockholm, but I couldn't stay there for very long as I needed to get back to the airport. To my frustration, I found when I gotr to the airport that my departure was delayed. I could have spent another hour in Stockholm instead of waiting at the airport, and the worst part was that now I wouldn't be getting into central Barcelona until after dark.
So the flight out from Arlanda eventually departed. I got to BCN, took a train into Barcelona Sants, and considered my options from there. Unfortunately, it was already too late for anything other than trains to the immediate suburbs, which I hadn't researched enough to feel comfortable wandering around looking for a place to surreptitiously set up a sleeping bag. So I accepted that my best option was to walk around all night in Barcelona. I took a train to Franca station, closer to the old city, and explored the city.
Unfortunately, at least from my perspective, the Barcelona old city, like those of so many other iconic European locales, is taken over at night by throngs of international youth partying hard. I have no particular objection to them doing so, but it's just not my thing. I wandered into areas where there were predominantly Spaniards around, but that presented its own problems. A guy ke+pt trying to share his drink with me, and I both didn't have the language to gracefully decline and lacked the cultural understanding that might have helped me figure out if he was just being friendly, was hitting on me, or had more sinister motives. So I eventually found a road heading up, which lead to several sets of stairwells, and then I found myself in Montjuic Park looking down on the city. I wandered around happily checking out sculptures and gardens and different views of the city and the port. However, my enjoyment of this experience was interrupted as I became
aware of another person up there with me, not openly following me but heading in the same directions, even after I turned around and walked past him. Again, my lack of relevant linguistic or cultural knowledge probably made this more unnerving that it should have been, but I quickly walked down off Montjuic and went back to Franca station, taking the first train out from there in the morning, heading south along the Mediterranean coast to Tortosa.
I liked Tortosa a lot. It's a medium-sized city on a river surrounding by hills, with impressive mountains about 10 km off to the west. As is my tendency, the first thing I did after I left the station was to look for routes up. Doing this I ended up outside a large industrial-looking building with a helipad, from which I could see the city spread out below. After that I plunged into the old city and wandered on stairways and twisty streets. Eventually I made my way back up toward the obligatory castle on the hill. Tortosa has a massive system of fortifications extending in layers out along the hills, and I spent over an hour wandering through them. Then I went back down into the city and walked along the river, then back to the station to continue the journey south.
My next stop was Benicassim. My objective was not the rather bland-looking seaside resort town but rather the dramatically rising hills to the northwest. However, it was very hot, and it was clear that the geography and vegetation of the hills was such that there would be no shade. So an extended stay was out, and the last train south for the day was leaving in a litle over an hour. What to do? I ventured to the hill above the rail tunnel north of the station and became scrambling along its side. It was probably only about 80 m high, but it was steep and challenging. I enjoyed the view from there for a few minutes, then came back down and continued south.
On the way into Valencia the train passed through Sagunt, a medium-sized town with a large sprawling castle on a low hill. I noticed from the signage that this was accessible by local train from Valencia, and I made a mental note that it might be worth coming back to. Valencia was very pretty in an upscale tourist-oriented kind of way, but its flatness, its massive and gleamingly well-maintained architecture, and the pervasive consumer commerce vibe was not appealing to me. I went back to the station and took the next train to Sagunt. Much more my kind of place. Delapidated old city with streets and stairs headed up in seemingly haphazard ways. Connected dwellings and businesses along a street were in drastically varying standards of repair and upkeep. Some oozed middle-class respectability, others literally had their roofs falling in. After about half an hour I came out of the city onto a trail that continued for several kilometers above the town and
below the castle. It was a fun trail, with some easy scrambles and passages alongside steep dropoffs. Finally, it reached a plateau with a large section of the castle visible. It was clear that there were ways to get up to the castle, but there were also lots of signs of restoration work, and I didn't feel the need to trespass. It was a perfectly lovely view right where I was.
As I started to settle in I noticed that the bear can with all my food was gone. The harness that was supposed to hold it onto the bottom of the pack was still there, but there was no bear can. Not good. With light fading, I backtracked quickly, hoping desperately that the can had come off during one of the scrambles and that I would see it on or near the trail. And indeed, that was what had happened. I was relieved, but now I needed to figure out what to do about sleep. It was too late to get back to the plateau before dark. I spied a spot against a rock cliff a few meters up from the trail. There was a big patch of cacti in the way, but I was able to maneuver through them with just a few scrapes. It was a small space, a little too rocky for optimal comfort, with the cacti and other prickly plants close in. But it was invisible from the trail and would be securely inaccessible after dark. I set up the sleeping bag, gave myself a full-body alcohol bath,
and enjoyed a view of city lights at the edge of the sea before going to sleep.
I woke up early, almost two hours before sunrise. The wind-up radio came in handy, as I listened to radio stations from Valencia as I waited for it to become light enough to walk down. I caught the next train back to Valencia, where I had to get a pass from a customer service agent to get on the local Metro train, go cross-town to the Sant Isidre station, and go on my way west. My first stop was a hillside town called Bunol. At first I was not terribly impressed. It looked like an industrial town that had fallen on hard times. Lots of broken glass and rust. I found a little mud road through some fields and took a few pictures of flowers, trees, and low hills. From there I passed a small park where I filled my water bottles and a high school with an interesting graffiti wall. There are elections coming up soon in Spain, and there are professionally done posters with candidates' faces on them all over. In addition, there are massive amounts of graffiti
with the hammer and sickle and the acronym of the local Spanish CP, as well as many swastika (more often than not the swastika has been crossed out with anti-fascist slogans added). Anyway, I had basically decided that Bunol just didn't have that much to offer whe I turned a corner and went down a hill that opened up to a river gorge park with a large castle on top of it and a sprawling old city extending down the other side. I went down into the park and noticed with delight that it was a cat-safe space where dogs were not allowed. And I kept seeing very happy-looking cats throughout the rest of my walk in Bunol. From the park I went up to the castle, walked up and down along stairs and archways with chaging views of the old city. Then I went down and into the city, where I refilled my water again. It was hot and I was going up and down a lot, but fortunately for me ornate public fountains are apparently a standard part of town life in Iberia. I've
been running into them constantly, such that I haven't had to take the water purifier out of the bag yet. The fountains in Bunol were the most interesting, with many being decorated with the image of and named after particular saints. What a great way to rejuvenate the faith of the locals, you think of the divine every time you vanquish your thirst!
The old town ended down at a river walk at the base of a high hill. I did not have the energy to go hiking on the hill, so I followed the river back toward the town and saw how it falls away to become the gorge park i had seen earlier. Then I walked back up through the city, calves protesting, and after wandering through a bustling streetside market and struggling with directions for a little while, I made it back to the station. I had several hours until the next train to Cuenca, my ultimate destination for the day. So I plotted out that first I would take a look at Chiva, a nearby hillside side I had passed through on the way to Bunol, and then I would stop somewhere further west on the local train line, either Requena or Utiel, from which I could catch the train to Cuenca.
Chiva was slightly disappointing, as my efforts at reaching the castle or monastery on top of the hill to the north were met with fences, gates, and signs that even a non-Spanish speaker such as myself could not possibly pretend meant anything other than "no trespassing." So I walked down into the hillside old city, where once again it was very hot and my legs protested against the frequent ups and downs. I went back to the station and took the train west. I was enjoying the rest, so I stayed on that train all the way to the end of the line, Utiel. That was an interesting place. My first cue that Utiel was a little different was the man riding on a horse-drawn cart. At first I thought it was a tourist gimmick, but as I watched it became clear that this horse-drawn cart being used as a practical means of transportation. (Later, on the train somewhere Cuenca and Madrid, I saw a farmer working his fields with a mule-drawn plow.) As I moved through Utiel, an
attractive but obviously very poor old city with many beautiful weathered buildings, I noticed that there was almost no one out, which seemed very odd for a Friday afternoon. There were neon lights strung between buildings above streets, and signage indicated that a major religious festival was coming up on Sunday. Maybe that was why no one was out, or maybe Utiel is just a very tranquil city, I don't know. But it was interesting. I walked into an old city cul-de-sac and inbetween two residences where I could clearly hear the sounds of human occupants and inbetween was a crumbling residence where the only residents very apparently were a large number of stray cats. I headed back to the station, refilling my water at the fountain on the way, and took the train to Cuenca, which was the one place in Spain I was most looking forward to seeing.
Cuenca did not disappoint, though at first it did confused. I knew from my planning that there was the station, a new city up and north from there, and the old city with the gorge up and north from there. So I figured as long as I kept going up and north that I'd get to where I wanted to go. My mistake. I ended up in a twisty, labrynthine old city, but apparently Cuenca has both multiple old cities on multiple lesser hills and THE old city, the one up high between the two river valleys. So I had to go way back down (sound of leg muscles groaning) before I could start going way back up. But once I got down and starting walking along the river all concerns about muscle ache faded. It was jaw-droppingly beautiful. I had joked when looking at it on Google Earth that Cuenca looked as if someone had placed a 2000-year-old city on top of the gorge at Zion National Park, and now that I was there, Iit seemed that this was not just hyperbole on my part. This was
one of those "so beautiful I cried" moments. I eventually ended up on a trail that slowly snaked up the left side of the valley underneath the city until finally ending up above the back of the city overlooking the sprawling valley north. It was late, so I was on the lookout for a place to bed down for the night. To my disappointment, I discovered at the end of the trail that the top was crowded with young people enjoying watching the sun go down. So I headed back down and settled into a narrow passageway between two large rocks just up from the trail. It was far from ideal, being easily accessible, and, from the wide array of garbage and wine bottles, not somewhere I could feel safely isolated. But it was almost dark, and I was very tired. I set up the bag in the cleanest part of the narrow space available and tried to go to sleep. The bugs were biting fiercely, so I cinched the bag tight up top with only a little space for air to make it less likely
that the little visitors would keep coming by all night. And finally I went to sleep.
I woke up the next morning while it was still dark, packed up, and went back out on the trail. At a more lesurely pace, with no one else around at the early hour, I explored the rock passageways and decayed fortifications on that side of the valley edge, feeling both giddy and solemn from the views. There were spaces so narrow I had to take off the pack to get through, and narrow stairs at steep angles with pieces broken off. I don't think in the U.S. that tourists would be allowed access to these kinds of spaces, but I suspect in Europe there is a greater acceptance of individual accountability. Or maybe all the relevant warnings and disclaimers were in languages I don't understand. Regardless, I appreciated the freedom to move through a magnificent space. Languidly I made my way into the city and worked my way over to the other side, where the views were not quite as dramatic but were still impressive. Over the next couple of hours I moved slowly
downward, filling my water in a park, passing an ancient church and listening to part of Saturday morning mass, and eventually entering a newer part of the city. The next train wasn't until 11:30, so I was just going wherever my feet led me. Until I found myself in a suburban-looking area with no point of reference as to where Cuenca was. Apparently this can happen quickly in an area like this with so many hills. The city was below me somewhere, but I had no idea which direction. I tried to ask directions, but outside the tourist industry almost no one in Spain speaks English. I could convey that I was looking for a train station, but all that people would convey in response was that there was no train station near where I was. Disconcerting. Finally I took off in what I hoped was the right direction, and before long I saw the hilltop religious icon that rises above Cuenca. It was only slightly higher elevated than I was, and I feared that it would take
hours to
get back to the station. But getting down was much easier than getting up, and after a series of twisty stairwells and steeply banked cobblestone roads I was back at the station in less than 30 minutes, easily making the train to Madrid.
I walked out of Atocha station near central Madrid, took one look at the massive well-maintained architecture, the wide bustling avenues, and the unrelentingly flat terrain, and went back into the station to go somewhere else. I had taken so many pictures in Bunol and Cuenca that I was on my third and last camera battery, so I looked around for an electrical outlet. I had no luck at Atocha, so I took a quick ride over to Chamartin station, the city north of town with the local routes out to the Sierra Guarrama mountains, and I plugged in there. After the batteries were charged up I headed northwest to Cercedilla, the town at the foothills. There were numerous technical problems with the train, and I didn't get into Cercedilla until very late. The last train up to Cotos, the high-altitude station next to the Penalara mountain park, had already left for the day. And it was starting to rain. I put on my rain gear and headed north to where I hoped to get on
a trail, but I had very little energy. By the time I finally reached the river park area with the trailheads 2 km north of the station, it was almost dark. I set up the sleeping bag and slipped the bivy sack around it to protect from the rain and the water-soaked ground. Because the Sierra Guarramas drain down to Cercedilla, it doesn't take much rain to make that area somewhat swampy. I set up at a fairly steep angle to make sure that water wouldn't settle around me in the middle of the night, but it wasn't the most comfortable position for sleeping. Still, I was exhausted and was out pretty quickly after climbing into the bag.
What happened next was the most unpleasant part of the trip so far. I woke up around 3 feeling water all around me. It hadn't rained at all, the sky had cleared and I could see stars through the trees. It was all condensation from the bivy sack. And there was enough of it that it had seeped through the sleeping bag and was enveloping me in cold wetness. And I was stuck there in the dark light that for three hours. For the first time, I seriously considered calling the whole thing off, contacting SAS to reschedule my flight, spending the next three weeks or so staying at hostels or huts at the select few places that I absolutely couldn't bear not seeing, and getting the fuck home. I clearly was not up to the challenge I had set up for myself here.
I headed back to the station unsure of what to do. I felt filthy and worn out. There were no trains for a couple hours, so I just hung out around the station feeling pathetic. However, the next train was the one up to Cotos. This is a rack rail, narrow gauge, that goes high up at steep angles. Most such rails are privately run and notr covered by my pass. So this was something of a treat. My fellow passengers were almost entirely families from Madrid coming out for a Sunday day trip. One of the conductors had never seen a Eurail pass before.
Cotos/Penalara both rejuvented me and forced me to accept that there were serious limits to what I was going to be able to do on this trip. I got to hike above the tree line, but that was only because a train had carried me up the first 2000 meters. There were little kids and senior couples moving at a much quicker pace than me. I went off the trail at one point, found a secluded spot, and removed my sleeping bag. The idea was both that I needed to dry it out from the night before and that I needed to lighten the pack in order to get any real hiking in. Even without the sleeping bag, the backpack appeared full when I put everything else in it, and I could still feel it dragging me down on the steep parts of the passage up. In the end, I had to pull up short of Penalara peak. But that was ok. I'm not a peakbagger, I don't have to get all the way to the top to enjoy just being there. And Penalara reminded me that I really do love being up in the mountains.
I seriously thought about camping up there. But I also wanted at that point to get out of Spain and closer to the parts of the itinerary where I was going to see mountains all the time.
When I picked up the now-dry sleeping bag, I looked it over and found that the zipper on the internal insulation was broken. That was part of why the condensation from the bivy sack had so quickly gotten to me the night before. Clearly, if I was having these kinds of gear issues this early, I needed to reconsider some of the more ambitious plans I'd made for later in the trip.
All the way down from Penalara and Cotos, I savored the fast ride with the loud squealing wheels, drinking in the view from the open window. Back in Cercedilla I saw that the local train to Segovia was late and decided I'd take a quick trip over. Segovia has one of those UNESCO-approved iconic old cities, but after Bunol and Cuenca my thirst was hilly Spanish old cities was perhaps sated. Still, I thought I'd take a look. I got out of the station and started heading up. Instead of going to an old city the narrow road up turned into a stairwell, then a brief scrambling route, and then I was behind the city at the end of a large field ending in mesa-like cliffs to the left and the gleaming Segovia castle in the distance to the right. It seemed like a reasonably good place to camp could be found nearby, and the old city in the distance was appealing. But I was too tired for traipsing around an old city, and if I wasn't going to sleep on Penalara why would I
sleep here? I went back to the station and caught the last train of the day to Madrid.
I knew I wanted to leave, but there were three options for night trains heading out of Spain. One would take me to Cerbere, the French border town I visited the last time I was in Europe. Another would go to Vigo, the Spanish city on the Atlantic coast just north of the Portuguese border. The final option was Lisboa, which is what I decided to do. This would be my first train with seat reservations and a large number of upscale tourists and locals, and I felt self-conscious about how grungy I was. By this point I was craving laundry facilities badly. I can and do use alcohol gel constantly to keep my body relatively clean and disinfected, but my clothes are taking a lot of abuse on this trip, especially this gray-blue (the perfect color to hide the dirt) fleece that I end up wearing every day either to keep me warm or to keep the sun off my head. Fortunately, the guy in the seat next to me was not someone to complain. In fact, he was an absolutely lovely
young man with whom I happily conversed until two in the morning on every topic from train travel in Europe (he was travelling on an Interrail pass) to European Union politics (he is culturally Austrian but lives in Italian Tirol, giving him a distinct perspective) to LGBT history (he wrote a thesis on how Austria's response to AIDS created a new medical discourse in which the state sought to abdicate medical responsibility for those who ignore the behavioral prescriptions the state publicized, with implications beyond than AIDS treatment).
In the morning we arrived in Lisboa. Cool Atlantic breeze, train station down low near the water, old buildings rising steeply above. I knew I was going to like this place the moment I stepped off the train. I rushed off to explore the Alfama, the sprawling old city just west and up from the station. It's a real, messy, lived-in space. There are a few touristy spots within it, but there's also public fountains that local residents use for their daily water needs, laundry drying out the windows, and graffiti in Portuguese. Then after you walk up and out of the Alfama there's areas with fantastic views of the Atlantic and more of an upscale, tourist-oriented feel. There are short yellow street cars that are emblematic of the city swooping up and down throughout this area, and it's amusing to watch cars weave in and out around these trolleys, often with very little margin between. From this area I walked further up, over the hill near the castle
fortifications, and then back down toward Rossio Square, the wide open and relatively flat area from which the city rises all around. There is a train station at Rossio, with direct service to Sintra, the renowned city of castles and forests. As much as I was enjoying Lisboa, I was eager to see Sintra, so I took the next available train.
Sintra enthralled me. Eager to get into the forest, I bypassed the old city near the station and headed up on twisty roads. Eventually I reached the entrance to a hillside trail that lead up to the Moorish castle, but I was sidetracked by a narrow trail along the secondary wall near the base of the main trail. There was so much greenery of so many kinds, and this mix of high hills, very tall trees, and large rocks that just worked for me. Ordinarily greenery does not excite me all that much, but I was on a major plant-induced high for much of the time I was in Sintra. And the Moorish fortifications, which are not just on the castle top but can be found throughout the green-covered hills, blend seamlessly with the environment, seemingly emerging from the rock around them and embraced by the same thick moss and other plant life that envelops everything. It was still early in the morning, but I knew immediately that I just had to sleep there that night,
even though my plan was to walk west to Cabo da Roca on the coast. Everything I wandered up trails to the Moorish castle, and I paid the 6 euro entrance fee, not so much because I just had to get in-- the most amazing stuff was all available for free outside the castle walls-- but because I wanted to give some money to support the existence of this place. That said, the castle was extraordinary, a series of fortifications with narrow stairwells and lookout posts with magnificent views in a semicircular rising and falling along the hillside above the town.
After leaving the castle grounds I decided to go ahead and try to get to Cabo da Roca, but that was something of a disaster. After a few kilometers of reasonably pleasant hiking I ran into an extensive strech where there was some kind of massive maintenance project going on with bulldozers and piled up trees and no trails. The only option for hiking was the roadway, and I realized after half a kilometer that I had no interest in walking that far on a road. I turned around and headed back. It was getting late as I made my way into the green rocky hills in search of a good place to sleep. I found an a small area surrounding by rocks that on closer inspection revealed themselves to be old fortifications long covered in moss and other vegetation. Within that space I was invisible to anybody walking through on trails, and by sitting up I had a good view of Pena Palace,the Disneyesque counterpart adjacent to starker Moorish castle.
I'd set up the sleeping bag and was getting ready to sleep when I heard the sound of thunder. My heart sank. There hadn't been a cloud all day, but now rain was coming. Packing up and leaving was not a palatable option. I was already set up, and I liked being there. So I was going to figure out how to cope. I got out the bivy sack and wrapped it aound the lower two-thirds of the sleeping bag. The bottom of the bag would still get wet, but it would keep most of the rainfall off. I covered the top part of my body with my rainjacket. Thus situated I tried to relax and get to sleep, which was hard as this set-up required that I stay still and I like to move around as I go to sleep. After a few minutes the rain started to come down, and it came down hard. Eventually the water started working around and under, but I didn't get soaked through and actually ended up having my best sleep yet on the trip. The bag, however, was drenched the following (this)
morning. I'm going to need to find a dryer or a place to air it in the next day or two, or else it's going to become a problem.
I woke up early with the forest of Sintra drowning in mist. I made my way down slowly, scrambling on rocks and finding still more hidden fortifications. By accident I came out of the forest onto private property and had to climb over a rock wall to get onto a legitimate trail. Then I had a long, serene walk back through the forests below the Moorish castle and down into the beautiful Sintra old town.
Eventually I walked back up to where the station was and took the train back to Lisboa. I went up the hill and had started back down toward the Alfama when I came across this curio shop with Internet access.
So what now? I desperately need to do laundry, but laundromats don't seem to be common here. There are no mountains nearby where I could dry out the sleeping bag. I'm thinking of going back to Madrid overnight and taking trains tomorrow into the Pyrenees.
And that's the first week.
Part 2
Ok, so last week I was in a curio shop on the edge of the Alfama section of Lisboa. From there I went downhill to Santa Apolonia station and considered my options. I had only been in Portugal for a couple of days and hated the idea of leaving so soon. Still, I was longing for real mountains, and the lack of snow obstruction on Penalara near Madrid suggested that maybe the Pyrenees were hikeable now.
Feeling indecisive, I went ahead and took a local train to Entroncamento. Unremarkable, flat city in central Portugal that is a major rail hub for points north and east. I could catch the overnight train back to Madrid from there or use it as the starting point for a two-day journey across some hilly terrain and the beautiful cities of northern Portugal. What to do? I decided to get on a train north and see what my heart told me once I started seeing those hills. And my heart was saying Pyrenees, so I got off at Fatima, cleaned myself up a bit, walked around a little in the surrounding hills, and took the next train back to Entroncamento. I bought a reservation for the overnight, but since it would not pqss through until nearly midnight, that left me with a few hours to kill. I checked the schedules and saw I could make a quick roundtrip to Tomar, the site of an old hilltop convent, in the time I had. So I did that. It was almost dark by the time I got there, and starting to drizzle a bit, so I decided against going up. Instead I just walked around and took a few pictures. While standing next to a church taking pictures of the convent, lightning struck, so close I thought at first it was someone setting off fireworks. Fortunately, I am confident enough in my agnosticism not to interpret such events as signs of the divine, and instead I just laughed at myself. With nightfall I could take no more pictures, so I wandered around a little more and decided to indulge in a real meal. I was doing very well on the budget so far, so why not? The server at the cafe looked at me askance, I surely looked and smelled dreadful, and of course there were language barriers. But it was late, I was the only paying customer, and after a steady diet of dry cereal and peanuts the beef, rice, lightly pickled vegetables, and Portuguese beer was really, really good.
After that satisfying meal I went back to Tomar station, then back to Entroncamento for a third time, and then on to the overnight to Madrid. I felt a bit of wistful sadness at leaving Portugal, but regardless of its many charms, I wanted mountains.
The overnight ride passed without incident, with no one seated next to me either to provide charming conversation or discomfiture with my stench. Back in the morning at Madrid Chamartin station I had just enough time to recharge one camera battery before catching the one daily local train to Zaragoza. That was a beautiful three-and-a-half hour ride, passing through stark and jagged terrain with old cities like Catalayud and Ariza along the way. At Zaragoza station I very nearly caught a train back to Ariza, but I was too close now. I took the train to Canfranc.
Canfranc is the end of a low-traffic local line. A single train car meandering slowly for nearly five hours with only a few passengers, ending amidst the mountains near the French border at a train station that was one of the finest in Europe when it was built in the 1920s but is now a ruin. Canfranc was the border station of a high-profile line between Spain and France, an engineering marvel with hundreds of bridges and tunnels crossing over and through the Pyrenees. But for whatever reason, the route never drew the traffic that had been expected, and when a bridge collapsed in the 1970s the French rail company decided not to rebuild it. But out of some kind of rail nostalgia they still allow Eurail pass holders to take buses along the route where miles of unused tracks and decaying stations still remain. I was looking forward to seeing some of that. But first, I intended to explore the mountains surrounding Canfranc itself.
It was late by the time I got to Canfranc, so I had few hopes of finding anything better than a random spot in the woods. My research had shown that just a kilometer north of the station a number of trails headed up the mountains to the east. I found the trailhead without difficulty and was on my way. To my delight, I came across a ski refuge within half an hour. A plain concrete room with a roof. Perfect. I dumped off my sleeping bag and explored higher up the trail in the hour or so I had before nightfall. I found two more such refuges. This was too cool. Given my problems with rain and my sleeping arrangements, shelter was much appreciated.
The next morning I headed further up with a plan. I would stay in those mountains for another full day. I would sleep at the refuge that was the highest I could get to without losing the assurance that I could get back to a refuge before nightfall. The trail was a series of switchbacks going up the side of the mountain, and my progress was slow. At one end was a series of concrete avalanche barriers that offered increasingly distant views of the area around the station. At the other end were views of the mountains going toward France. On and on, up and up. The trees became twisted and gnarly as the switchbacks got shorter and steeper. I saw a horned sheep-like creature looking down from above, the only mammal beside myself I saw all day. By this time it was midafternoon, and I would have to turn around soon if I did not come across a refuge. Then the trail crossed the avalanche barrier to the other side, now heading south, and it continued going up as snow became prominent in the landscape. A marker at a frozen fountain told me the elevation was over 2100 meters. But I would have to turn around soon.
When I saw it, I would not have been happier if I were given a free room at the Four Seasons. There in front of me on a grassy overhqng at about 2200 meters was the remains of a collapsed refuge. But on the far end, some industrious soul had taken some of the wood and metal and fashioned a crude slanted shelter coming off one of the standing walls. I set up camp, spreading out my sleeping bag and hanging up clothes in the available space. Then I headed out to explore, wearing my rain gear as it was beginning to come down hard, but much less encumbered minus the weight of the sleeping bag and the clothes. Which was good, because the trail got much more irregular at that point. Lots of scrambling over muddy rock, and at one point I had to cross over an avalanche barrier with snow frozen over running water, in the rain. It was only a short distance, but it was a little nervewracking. From there the trail headed south, offering some pretty spectacular
views, but to my disappointment it started heading down. I looked for alternative trails, but all I got was false leads that required vigorous scrambling to get back to the real trail. So I headed back toward my refuge. Along the way I saw that there was a higher set of avalanche barriers with some fairly obvious scrambling routes up. The rain had slacked off, and I was feeling adventurous. Soon I was all the way up the ridge and moving cautiously on a rock pile overlooking the highest of the avalanche barriers and, way way down below, Canfranc station. It was a giddy moment, but I was not inclined to linger. No need to do anything where I end up breaking an ankle and ruining the whole trip. I made my way back to my impromptu refuge, scrambling along the way until a hint of mist reminded me of how easy it would be to become lost and disoriented if I spent too much time goofing off. Stick to the trail, back to the refuge.
There was still a little over an hour before nightfall, and I had too much adrenaline going to sleep. I turned on the windup radio and cranked up the Shania Twain and Lady Gaga that are apparently staples of commercial Spanish radio. 2200 meters up, in a ramshackle shelter with the wind cutting through, singing along at the top of my lungs to Man I Feel Like a Woman. Sometimes life is good. It occurred to me that being so happy at that moment said something about who I was, and about how I use music as a substitute for human interaction.
The trip down the next morning, unsurprisingly, went much more quickly than the way up. I saw another one of the sheep-like horned creatures on the trail as I turned a corner, and it bolted up off the trail across a vertical space more than twice my height. I have no idea what that animal is, but I was impressed. Otherwise, the descent was relatively uneventful, but I was still glowing from the day before. I was not even worried about the fact that I was now even filthier than before and had not had clean clothes to change into for several days.
I caught the 11 am bus across the border and into the village of Urdos. From Google Earth, I knew that Le Chemin de la Mature, a rocky hiking trail carved into the side of a mountain, was located just a little north of Urdos, so I headed north in search of a trail. I found the abandoned rail station and adjacent tracks heading up into a tunnel, but no trails. The main road was not pedestrian-friendly, with no space outside the lane markers- not an attractive option. I found one trailhead north of the village, but all it did was take a roundabout into the hill, looping back south toward the village center. There was another trail branching off from it heading further up, but the markings suggested that it was another local loop. I was flustered. I walked around Urdos for an hour and thought about just catching the next bus and moving on. But I decided to give the trail a shot. Maybe it would lead to another trail that would get me to where I wanted to go. It started raining about twenty minutes later. My shoes had never really dried fronm the previous day- they are wonderfully waterproof when it comes to streams and puddles, but water from above just inundates them. Soon it felt like my feet had turned into gluey goo. The trail was steep, muddy, and rocky. I was not happy about the way things were going. After about two hours the trail opened up to a plateau with a construction project of some sort and a radio tower. Behind me was a truly spectacular view of the bowl-shaped Pyrenees that formed the France-Spain border in that area. Jaw-dropping view, I can see why they made a trail just so people could walk up and feel enveloped by this giant glorious bowl of rock and ice. But that splendor did nothing to improve my particularly wretched situation. From near the radio tower I could see north to where Le Chemin was, but there was a deep valley inbetween. I was screwed.
I made my way down the steep, muddy trail back to Urdos, slipping repeatedly and getting more frustrated. The rain subsided, but my shoes were sloshing and the light was fading. I got down off the trail and started walking north on the main road, not giving a shit anymore that there was no shoulder. Soon I came across a sprawling fortress, Portalet, up in the mountain above me. Access to it was by way of a switchback road that ended at a steel bridge high above a fast-flowing river, with a gate where the bridge met the main road. The fence at the gate hung open invitingly, but signs all over the place clearly indicated, even to someone such as myself who may have wanted to pretend otherwise, that access was forbidden. I made myself move on. By this time my feet were in pretty bad shape. It was now almost completely dark, but I could not find a sleeping place that I was happy with. After almost settling in under a rail bridge, I took off my waterlogged socks because my feet felt better with only the soaked shoes instead of the multilayered globby heaviness. Finally I came to the tiny village of Eygut and set up camp in a gutted building right in the center of the village. I suspect anyone could have seen me from the shops across the street if they were looking. But it was dark, and I was too tired and miserable to keep looking.
No matter how wretched I feel in the evening, the morning brings new possibilities. I got up at the first trace of light and got packed up and out before anyone else in Eygun stirred. I made my way back south to Etsaut, where during my plight the night before I had seen signs for Le Chemin de la Mature. Despite the trail being closer to Urdos, the road that accesses it starts in Etsaut. This was the source of my earlier troubles. Now, sore feet and all, I was looking forward finally to getting on this trail. On the way I was delighted to see that in Etsaut they had transformed their abandoned rail station and the surrounding property into a nature park. I passed through the village and alongside more abandoned rail bridges before reaching the trailhead. Le Chemin is a route that heads steeply up, with spectacular views of the fortress Portalet from near the trailhead and then continuing up more steeply, with the racing river falling further and further into a green-covered abyss. I just could not do this trail with the heavy backpack, so after gasping and heaving every few steps I stopped and stashed the pack under a clump of bushes. Even unencumbered, it was a rough trek, blasted rock with no even surfaces. But with views like that, going slow was a pleasure. It was not a long trail, and after a couple of hours it opened up to a green plateau and continued as a more leisurely trail into the mountains, connecting to a much larger network of trails and refuges. But I had a bag at the bottom of the Chemin and laundry that desperately needed doing. So I headed down, feeling light with no pack on and much more relaxed about the steep dropoff than I had been on the way up. I ran into a number of other hikers, and I made polite conversation with several of them in their broken English and my even more broken French. One of them commented that he had thought he scented a bear right before coming across me on the trail. And I was thinking that I merely smelled like a wet dog.
I got down off the trail and walked back to Etsaut to wait for the bus north to Oloron. At the stop I met the ultimate hiker's resource, an older local who knows the mountains and loves to share his knowledge. Between swigs from his wine bottle, he instructed me on which trails would provide what kinds of experiences: the highest waterfalls, the most diverse vegetation, etc. This was not the most immediately relevant information, as I was leaving the Aspe Valley that day and had no plans to return later in this trip. However, he also had useful suggestions for other parts of the Pyrenees as well as for parts the French Alps. And most joyously, he told me where to find the laverie in Oloron, the city I was headed for. As the bus arrived I thanked him profusely and was on my way.
After making a wrong turn and inadvertently exploring part of Oloron's extensive and hilly old city, I found my true heart's desire- the laverie. I stripped down to the bare legal minimum and threw every other scrap of cloth in my possession, including the sleeping bag, into a large washer. I gave myself a leisurely alcohol bath as I waited and then changed into clean clothes for the first time in over a week. With renewed swagger I explored Oloron for a little longer before heading for the station and taking the next train to Pau.
Pau was surreal. I had become accustomed in the previous days to isolated mountain trails and tranquil villages. Even Oloron, the gateway city for the Aspe Valley, has a low-key old town feel. I came into Pauon a late Saturday afternoon in the middle of the Grand Prix de Pau, a major event in the world of European auto racing. Part of the race course and several large grandstands were within 100 meters of the station entrance, and there were thousands of people watching and milling around. It was disorienting. I wandered through the city for an hour or so, taking particular delight in a staging area for some kind of Go Kart race in which the participants included women and men who looked to be in their 60s as well as kids who couldn't have been much older than 10. I would have stayed to watch them race, but it was getting late and I did not want to try wild camping in a large city like Pau.
As it turned out, my next destination for the evening, Lourdes, was not the greatest place for wild camping, either. At first it seemed highly promising. Lourdes is a city on many hills, with impressive religious architecture in several locations and, as I noticed while walking through, the neon glow of cheap hotels and a seedy row of bars in an area called the Grotto. It was late, so after briefly checking out the city I made my way toward the heavily forested hill east of the city. I couldn't find any trails, and after it got dark I just plunged into the woods and settled into what seemed like a reasonably clear space. It felt a little off, maybe the smell wasn't quite right, but I couldn't get entirely comfortable there, and at around three in the morning I decided to pack up and head back to the station. As I stuffed everything into the backpack I noticed that a variety of gelatinous slug-like creatures had attached themselves to many of my possessions. This probably should have upset me more than it did, but that "clean clothes" high from the previous day was still with me such that I didn't freak out. In retrospect, it seems strange to me just how little I reacted to this development. I just put up my things as I normally do and went on my way. Of course, like any old city on hills Lourdes lacks anything resembling an organized grid street pattern, so finding the station was not an unproblematic task. Eventually I wandered into the Grotto area, where there were large numbers of French soldiers in uniform out partying in a subdued manner totally unlike that of the drunken international tourists I'd seen in Barcelona. Anyway, from the Grotto it was relatively easy to orient myself and get back to the station. With still an hour before the first train of the day, I emptied my backpack and detached more of the gelatinous things that I had failed to see earlier in the dark. At that point I decided on a new strategy- if I came to a city at night with no concrete plan for where I was going to sleep, I would look around and if no ideal shelter presented itself I would just sleep outside the train station. No more gelatinous slugs for me, thank you very much.
Because I was at the station so early, I caught the first train of the day, to Toulouse. I slept the entire way and was in the city for less than an hour before heading back toward the Pyrenees. In Pamiers all passengers headed south had to transfer to bus, part of the French rail company's cost-cutting. I hate that this scenic rail route into the Pyrenees, like the long-dormant one through the Aspe Valley, is no longer running, but at least the rail pass still gives me access to the region. It leads to some awkward moments with bus drivers, however, as they are not used to customers travelling on rail passes and the language barriers lead to further confusion. Such annoyances notwithstanding, it was a beautiful ride back into the mountains, passing through picturesque old towns like Foix. I left the bus at L'Hospitalet, which I knew was along the route of one of the major through-hiking routes across the Pyrenees. Sure enough, there were numerous signs leading me south through the town, across the highway, and steeply up into the mountains to the west. For about the first hour the trail twisted up and around, a slow slog in the afternoon heat. Then as it curved into the higher valley aound the corner, L'Hospitalet, the highway, and the densely forested area I had been hiking through was replaced by a rockier area with a stream running down through it and grand vistas of green and yellow, with high-altitude montains of bare rock and snow in the distance. The trail continued up less steeply now, with more scrambling over water and rock. Whether from weather-related reshaping or my own incompetence, I had difficulty following the trail, often having to cross over mud or loose rock to get back to where I was supposed to be. And, as always, the heavy pack made any effort to move higher a slow, drawn-out affair. Take ten steps. Stop. Enjoy the view. Say high to the cows over there looking at you suspiciously. Walk up another ten steps. Check out the view behind you. Breathe in the air. Keep going. After awhile I passed by some kind of hydroelectric power facility and the trail curved up into another valley with a wide grassy area surrounded with majestic snow-capped high mountains. And there, sitting in the middle of the plateau, was a refuge. I dumped my sleeping bag and clothes and relaxed on the grass with mountains in my eyes. Then for the remaining three hours or so before nightfall I explored further up the trail with the lighter load on my back. It looked like it kept spiraling upward without ever approaching the ridgeline, but I couldn't be sure. A mist kept threatening to form in the valley behind me, so I turned back before it got too late. The refuge this time was practically luxurious. There were even flophouse mattresses on wooden frames. With the sleeping bag on top of a mattress, it felt incredibly comfortable.
With only a small window letting in the light from outside, I didn't have my usual cues that it was time to get up. As a result, I slept late, not getting back onto the trail until quarter to eight. Stepping out of the refuge in the morning into this vast mountain-rimmed space felt glorious. As usual, the way down was a much jauntier ride than the way up, and I felt fantastic as I rolled back into L'Hospitalet at just past eleven. I refilled my water bottles at the town fountain, went down to the station, took off my boots, and propped my feet up in the sun. Only a few blisters on toes gave evidence to the abuse I'd put my feet through, and for that I was grateful. The boots were looking pretty ratty, and the backpack had a few small tears that hadn't been there at the start of the trip. But on the whole both me and the gear were holding up pretty well.
I took the bus on the short trip to Latour de Carol, an unexceptional French old town that happens to be the site of a major rail terminal. It's the only place in Europe where there are three different size rail tracks: the regular French rail line to Toulouse that for now was being run on the buses I had been riding, the Spanish rail line that connected Latour with Barcelona, and the narrow-gauge line of the famous "yellow train." The "yellow train" is a tourist line that the French rail company has operated for the past 100 years, not inherently more spectacular than any other rail route through the Pyrenees but it has a brand reputation that allows it to draw traffic that the other mountain routes apparently cannot. No actual local residents use the yellow train, as regional buses are both cheaper and quicker. Each of the three times I was on the yellow train, I was the only person using it as a practical means of transportation rather than as a tourist excursion. Still, I do have to admit that it was fun to ride in the open air, especially as the train swooped down into dark tunnels and shot out into the light with tree-filled valleys stretching below. But mountains are much more fun on foot than on rail, and I couldn't help but notice that there was a hiking trail that ran parallel to the whole route. That sort of long hike doesn't make sense on this train-based trip, but I can imagine doing something like that in the future.
My first stop off the yellow train was a place called Font Romeu. I explained to the guy at the counter that I wanted to get to Pic du Carlit. He handed me a brochure with a map and told me to start walking up the street and keep going until I reached the tourist office, which would be awhile. He wasn't lying. It's a five kilometer hike, spiraling steeply uphill the entire time, from the train station to the center of the town of Font Romeu. Unlike the sleepy old towns I'd experienced in the Pyrenees up to that point, Font Romeu was a major center for the young, hip, upscale athletic crowd. Ski shops, bicycle shops, pizza parlors, and bars. Advertisements for karaoke night. Arcade Fire playing in the grocery store. I got to the tourist office just before it closed, and the man working there gave me very clear directions for a very complicated route. To get to Pic du Carlit; first I had to pick up a trail just uphill from the town. That trail sloped gently uphill, crossed a couple of paved roads, and arrived after a couple of hours at a place called Coll del Pam. Unfortunately, Coll del Pam turned out to be a modest 2000-meter peak where two different ski lift systems met. Everything was shut down for the season, and there was no one up there. Just a bunch of ugly metal and space cleared of trees, and I got confused trying to ascertain where to go from there. Finally I brought out the compass and headed northwest down a washed out access road with ski lanes stretching off the sides. The one highlight of this part of the trek was saying hello to all the deer down on the ski lanes and watching the more skittish ones bounding down and away. Before too long a trail broke off from the road and I was in a reasonably pleasant woodsy space heading down over tree roots and rocks. It was getting dark, so I walked off trail and set up camp for the night.
The next morning I kept heading down and came to the first of what would be a great many mountain lakes I would see that day. Beside it was a lovely refuge I could have used the night before if only I'd stayed on trail for another half-hour. Beyond that was a pleasant morning slog across a grassy mud plain for maybe a kilometer, leading to another lake and what looked like a hotel, with snow-capped mountains providing a pleasant backdrop. In front of the hotel was the trailhead for Carlit. According to the sign it was a 3.5 hour hike, but I knew within 10 minutes it wasn't going to work out that way for me. Lots of rocky scrambling right at the start, and I took the first available opportunity to find an area up from the trail where I could dump the sleeping bag and the clothes. Then I was able to continue on at my conventional slow but steady pace. Unlike my previous Pyrenees hikes, the area around Carlit is a high-traffic area. Lakes with stunning mountain backdrops abounded, and the hiking, at least until the actual approach to Carlit, was only modestly challenging. Lots of people of all ages languidly enjoying the beauty of the place, and to their credit there was very little litter. The people who come there clearly value the place. And then there was Carlit itself. Over 2900 meters, one of the highest in the Pyrenees. I was doing pretty well until I hit the sections where massive sweeps of snow covered the trail as it sloped steeply up. I saw others successfully walk across and was able to follow their footsteps, but not without a lot of awkward struggle. Then there were passages where the trail was rocky and went around narrow ledges and involved some tricky scrambling. And then I turned a corner and saw there was still another 200 meters or so to the peak, with a lot of snow to traverse on the way. And that was enough for me. Once again, Charles the mountain man who can't make it all the way to the top. And that's fine by me. I lack the gear, I lack the experience, and if I manage not to get myself killed I'll acquire both the gear and the experience eventually. No point in pushing it on this day. And with all the difficulty I had walking back over the snow heading down, I knew I was making the right choice.
It was still relatively early as I made my way back down. I had planned to spend the night at the refuge I'd seen by the first lake, but it was only 17:30 when I got back to that point. I decided to keep going, back up the woodsy trail, up the access road, across ski lift hell, and gently down the urban parks. I missed a turn near the end and wound up descending across an empty golf course, but I came out just below the center of Font Romeu. At that point I decided to keep going and walk down to the station, which I got to shortly after dark. I set up the bag between the bench and the tracks and went to sleep.
In the morning I discovered that the bathrooms at the station were unlocked, facilitating cleaning up. There was also an electrical outlet there, which was fantastic as I was on my last digital camera battery and had hated reeling in my picture-taking instincts the day before on the approach to Carlit. While batteries were charging, I sat on the bench listening to the radio on headphones, and when the station attendants arrived at 8:30 they assumed I had just gotten there for the morning train.
(continued in next post as I've reached the word limit)
