Kilometres walked: 20km / Total distance: 284km/ Elevation gain: 342m / Elevation loss: 1423m / Time walked: 6h5min From our campsite at the lake it’s a short scramble to the top of the next col: Brazato, at about 2500m. More rocks! Compared to yesterday it feels like nothing, although it’s sometimes difficult to make out the trail among all the boulders. It takes us three hours to do 6km. Jumping from rock to rock, constantly…
Kilometres walked: 15km / Total distance: 264km/ Elevation gain: 1076m / Elevation loss: 875m / Time walked: 6h57min My brain fabricates many stories of disaster that I have learned how to deal with over the years, but now there are very primal signals from my body that are screaming: “You can’t be here! If you move your foot you will fall and die!” I’m on a rocky ledge at 2805m, one hand holding on to…
Kilometres walked: 17km / Total distance: 249km/ Elevation gain: 995m / Elevation loss: 417m / Time walked: 4h51min (both days combined) First thing I do when I wake up in my hotel bed is checking the weather forecast. It is not looking good. The forecast for today has improved a bit, but tomorrow is looking worse. The Pyrenees are known for having afternoon thunderstorms that are short but intense, but the forecast is now predicting…
Kilometres walked: 20km / Total distance: 232km/ Elevation gain: 940m / Elevation loss: 694m / Time walked: 5h39mim Yesterday, when setting up ‘camp’ in the picnic area, I suddenly really felt like staying in a hotel for a night. A room, a shower, WiFi. I wasn’t in need of a rest day, but for some reason I was really feeling like being indoors for a bit. Fortunately there was cell service at our campsite so…
Kilometres walked: 19km / Total distance: 212km/ Elevation gain: 872m / Elevation loss: 900m / Time walked: 6h45min Last night was windy, my tent again flapping in the wind. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong when pitching it: all the guylines and corner points are taut but the fly is still billowing. Or maybe I just need to get used to the noise? In any case, earplugs seem to be the remedy. At least…
Day 8: Kilometres walked: 18km / Total distance: 193km / Elevation gain: 987m / Elevation loss: 807m / Time walked: 5h45min. I walk out of the camping in the morning together with Nicole, another Dutch girl and member of the little hiking bubble that developed over the last few days. We’re heading for the real mountains! Yesterday I could see them coming closer and closer and today we are here! From the camping we follow…
Kilometres walked: 33km / Total kilometres: 175 / Elevation gain: 1280m / Elevation loss: 830m / Time walked: 8h7min When my alarm vibrates at 5:30 and I remove my earplugs I hear music. Apparently the town party is still going strong. Only at 6:30, as I make my way out of the camping, the music stops playing. Bleary-eyed drunk teenagers watching the sun come up in the town square. And me, walking through, trying not…
Kilometres walked: 16km / Total distance: 141km / Elevation gain: 326m / Elevation loss: 941m / Time walked: 4h7min. The campsite up the ridge from yesterday is beautiful but I sleep poorly. First, there are lots of cows and horses around and although the sound of their bells is kind of soothing, I keep listening intently to check if they’re coming closer, too close. Irrational fears of a stampede trampling my tent with me inside…
Kilometres walked: 23 / Total distance: 125km / Elevation gain: 1134m / Elevation loss: 638m / Time walked 6h33min Every time I stretch my legs they cramp up. I know this feeling from the beginning of a marathon training cycle, and it signals an adjustment period I have to go through. I also know that this adjustment does not happen without adequate rest, do I vow to take it a bit easier from now on.…
Kilometres walked: 32 / Total distance: 102km / Elevation gain: 1600m / Elevation loss: 1244m / Time walked 8h22min I wake up at my campsite after a broken night’s sleep. It takes me way too long to break up camp and make breakfast, I clearly need to develop a routine to smoothen this process, because right now it’s an explosion of gear, cold coffee, clothes airing out, and me trying to do three things at…