Hey guys,
I just got back from a hiking trip in the Pyrenees mountains with one of my friends Lexi from my study abroad program in Barcelona, Spain. I spent three days over the weekend hiking around and seeing the natural beauty of an area so different from the good ol' Appalachians of my homeland. The weather wasn't great (read: it rained almost the entire time I was there), but the moisture did bring a little surprise when I woke up on the last day--SNOW! (Although it was a little obscured by the clouds)
I stayed in this great refuge in the Coma de Vaca Valley. It is situated around 2000m and has trails that fan out from it that go all over the Pyrenees. I met a lot of very cool people while I was there and ate great food that the refuge keepers made for us. I could get used to three course meals in the backcountry!
The hikes around here were pretty darn spectacular. This picture is during the descent through the Freser River gorge.
On all the trails around here, they let all kinds of animals graze. On my hike I saw horses, cows, sheep, and a few wild Chamois.
It is leaf season in the Pyrenees and while it wasn't as spectacular as in the Southeast, it was still great to see some orange and yellow on the mountains.
I would guess I saw around thirty or so waterfalls on this trip. It seemed like around every corner was another spectacular waterfall. This probably had a lot to do with the amount of rainfall we got (on Monday, the forecast called for 100mm or ~4 inches). This is a beautiful waterfall on the Freser River as the trail approached the crossing.
This is a map of the entire hike. You can see the start and finished marked as well as where we stayed.
This area is absolutely spectacular, even in the rain, and if you are ever in the Barcelona area, I highly encourage you to check it out. It is very easy to get to. You take one train from downtown Barcelona to a small mountain town called Ribes de Freser. There, you switch to a cremallera or "rackrailway" for the 12.5km ride up to Vall de Núria, along the way gaining over 1000m. This small resort has trails heading in every direction as well as a small ski area that I plan to check out in December.
It was great to get outside for another fall hike, but seeing snow sure made me long for ski season to hurry up and get here!
Charlie
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The messageboard is now in read-only mode and no new posts or topics can be created. We will leave the messageboard up for historical purposes, but you will not be able to make new posts or comment on existing ones.
We have started a Discord server and hope that you all will join us on there. Technology has changed over the years and maintaining the messageboard has become somewhat of a pain in the butt and Discord offers many features for users, the main one being a very polished mobile app.
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I see snow! Hiking in the Pyrenees - 11 October 2010
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EastCoaster
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- Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:42 pm
Awesome. One of those places on the bucket list.