Originally this was planned as an 8 day expedition across the Pyrenees, starting in France and zigzagging back and forth over several passes before eventually finishing in Spain. Unfortunately the planned 8 day trek had to be cut down to 6 due to a former skateboard knee injury which meant we had to miss the last 2 days of trekking in Spain (although still waiting doctors note to prove it). Before describing the expedition there are a few things that need to be explained/ highlighted before any one thinks of heading out on this expedition themselves.

1. Remember you’re not a kid any more. I forgot it was 4 years ago when I last did a hike like this, and in those years I have smoked many more tabs, drunk lots of beer, and entered middle age.
2. Backpacks are heavy. Follow the golden rule, bring only the essentials that you need since unless you hire mules you’re going to have to carry it all.
3.  Although food is essential, unfortunately nice food is very heavy. Dry food is best option since the weight adds up. It is amazing how heavy a can of tuna can feel after you have been carrying it on your back all day.
4. Refugios aren’t that expensive. It is worth being organised enough to do a bit of research onto the price of Refugio food. A main meal costs roughly 10 euros, which isn’t too bad in comparison to the price of back surgery when you get home (obviously I didn’t do this or it wouldn’t be included in the list).
5. Don’t buy walking trousers with patches on them. Never bought any but still think they look stupid. Especially don’t get matching ones if you’re a couple.
6. Walking sticks are good, just like bow ties. I think is better to make one rather than buying proper ones, but they do save your knees and take the weight off you back.
7. French like signs, Spanish don’t. Although I hate to admit it, the French have the right idea with excellent signs stating distances and directions. However the Spanish seem to only put lots of signs up that say “Parc Nacional” and nothing else.
8. Add rocks to the hikers rock formations, you never know when you may need them. Please add to the rock mounds to help on unclearly marked routes, they can be a god send at times. Most of GR10 is marked by red/white markings, however on the spanish side the signs seem to be another case of manaña, manaña.
9. Take note that going down isn’t as easy you may think. I made this mistake with my estimations when planning and only learned through pain and experience that at times it can be just as hard as, if not harder than going up. If you go down 700 metres in a short distance it is going to hurt, especially your knees.
10. Learn to read and properly understand contour lines on a map. Going up and down 3 passes with steep contours in one day over a short distance with full pack on and dodgy knees is going to kill you.
11. Don’t buy compasses off ebay, is full of crooks.
12. Take lots of bread since the grain crisis has hit the Pyrenees. No refugios along the way sell it, although luckily they still sell alcohol.
13. Never forget that water is precious, don’t take it for granted. You can find clean streams along much of the walk. Although it may feel a hassle to carry the extra weight, I recommend to keep a spare litre for those emergencies when you can’t find any.

Due to back pack size and types, I was lumbered with taking the heavier load. My pack weighed 15 kilo at the start, with tent, sleeping bag, cooker, pans and all the clothes. Add to that gas and food it must have been nearer 20 kilos when we set off. Ian had some of the weight, and took probably about 12 to 15 kilos. My pack was too heavy to start with, and add to that being out of condition didn’t help matters. I would say that you shouldn’t carry more than 15 kilo if you want to walk comfortably, but you need to do a few one day hikes carrying that weight in advance to condition yourselves. Food wise, I was a bit adventurous with Bolognese and chili as well as uncle bens rise. You need to stick to stiff without liquid. Dried rise, dried vegetables, packet soup, and pasta. Also got to think of stuff with high energy like nuts. For breakfast porridge is always good for energy (although tastes disgusting), and for snacks need nuts, biscuits, sweets and a flask for the mid day cup of tea. Remember we never colonised the world and won 1 world cup and 2 world wars without having a cup of tea first.

So now lets get onto the trek. It was originally planned to be an eight-day expedition starting from  Cauterets (France) and ending up in  Benasque (Spain). Unfortunately we had to cut it down to 6 days and finish in Biesla (Spain), to then catch a bus to Barcelona for the flight home. The map below show the route we took as well as the planned route.

As would be expected we made a few school boy errors before we even started.
-No warm up hike in advance. As previously mentioned both us were a little out of shape and practise.
-Didn’t organise our backpacks in advance.  Intertwines with first point, should have evened packs and checked weight beforehand.
-4hrs sleep before an 8 day trek is not the best preparation. With the type of flight we had should have stayed the first night Cauterets. That way we would have had more time to get all the supplies and organise our bags properly before setting off a fresh next morning.

I have one last important point to make before we move on to the hike. You have got to remember that you are off to a bare remote mountain range in the middle of nowhere, so is highly unlikely to be able to get a phone reception anywhere. Another point to add is that you go to place like this to get away from civilisation, technology and the rat race. Therefore it is probably a daft idea to not explain this to your girlfriend, and an even dafter to promise to phone her since she may get worried about you. If need be you can catch fish with a stick and some string, hunt rabbits with bow and arrow, make fire from 2 sticks, but impossible to conjure up a mobile phone mask out of the wilderness.

Day 1 Cauterets (902m) to Refuge Wallon (1864m)
Distance: 10 km Time: 4½ – 5hrs Height gain: 962m
– Cauterets (902m) to Pont d` Espagne (1465m) 8 km
– Pont d` Espagne (1465m) to Refuge Wallon (1864m) 5.5km

So the first day, very little sleep, 15 kilo & 20 kilo rucksacks, no walking sticks, dodgy knees, white legs, bottle of cheap rum and pigeon french, off we set. We arrived at 10ish in Lourdes and were planning on getting the bus to Cauterets. However time wise we decided it was more sensible to bite the bullet and fork out 60 euros to get taxi from Lourdes to Cauterets rather than waiting around and delaying our start. Although taxis are something we normally hate to do when traveling, by the time we got to the end of this first day you can definitely say that was a wise decision. So once in central town, a quick stop off at a faithful tourist office for directions, stocked up on gas and fresh food, and then off we set on the supposed easy first day hike to our first base camp. As we came to learn over the next few days, things look so much easier on the map when looking at it from the comforts of your own home with a glass of wine, compared to the rugged real terrain. I am normally a pessimist soul, but for some reason with my hiking planning I become surprisingly (and dangerously) optimistic. The first part of the days trek up to Pont d` Espagne was quite gradual and wasn’t too bad as a warm up for the hike. It was a long gradual path up through the forest until we eventually arrive at a tourist hot spot, which was the Pont d` Espagne. Lots of French blue rinse pensioners and a beautiful cold coke-cola. Our French companion had a glass of Stella whilst explaining to us that apparently it is good for restoring all the vitamins you loose hiking. Typically, being English we couldn’t chance having one since that probably would have led to a few more, and hiking in the Pyrenees with beer goggles is warned against in most reputable hiking guides. At least we can look forward to the cheap French rum at the end of the day…..

After fuelling up on coke (not the Colombian type) we set off on the second part of the trek at around 3ish expecting a nice couples of hour stroll to the Refugio.  It started of all so well, a gentle stroll through a beautiful valley, although I was starting to feel like someone had snuck a few big boulders in my rucksack whilst we had our stopped. The climb up from the valley was a gradual climb that got quite steep in parts, but ended up feeling like a never ending trail going up and up. Along the way we had to contend with nearly getting trampled over by the biggest heard of friendly cows I have ever seen. Unfortunately it was at this point I picked up my first war wound since clipped on my arm by a cow tail covered in s#*t.  However I guess I shouldn’t complain because in India that is probably some sign of blessing and holly greatness.

The good old guide book I planned this section from said it was only 5.5k from Pont d` Espagne to the Refugio, but after checking map and the length we walked it seems more like 8km. So what from was meant to be a gentle stroll turned into an endurance hike, and by the time we reached the Refugio at 7ish I was near enough crawling on all fours. Ian surprisingly seemed ok, but there again the skateboard knees hadn’t kicked in yet. As anyone normal person in our situation would do, we got our priorities straight and abandoned putting tent up straight away, and instead got a few ice-cold beers from the Refugio. They could probably have been classed the nicest I have ever had, that is until day2. Despite the trials and tribulations of the first day the tent went up in record time and we had a feast for dinner of ham, tomato passata and pasta for tea. May I just point out for any foreign readers (if I have any) at this point, tea in England actually means an evening meal, it doesn’t mean we sit around drinking tea and eating scones with a picture of the Queen on the wall. It was at this point we realized the more we ate tonight the lighter our packs would be the next day, the true definition of a win, win situation. Our annoying french friend kept reminding us of how perfect he was and how little weight he was carrying. 1 can of gas had lasted him a year, he only eat cus cus and soup for dinner, peanuts for breakfast, 1 piece of salami for lunch. Yet all the pain I had endured during the day felt worthwhile just being able to see the look on his face when he smelt and saw the feast we where about to eating (obviously after saying a grace). England 1  France 0. Unfortunately Ian is kinder than me and had the humility and heart to share some of it with him, but I didn’t let this spoil my enjoyment. I suppose at least one of us will be going to heaven, but the question is which one????

Day 2 Refuge Wallon (1864m) to Refuge de Bayssellance (2651m)
Distance: 10 km Time: 7½ hrs Height Gain: 787m
– Refuge Wallon (1864m) to Col d` Arratille (2528m) 5 km
– Col d` Arratille (2528m) to Refuge de Bayssellance (2651m) 5km

So here comes day 2, where cleverer people would have planned a gradually more difficult day whilst still finding their feet in the mountains. If you know me well you will know this hurts, but unfortunately I have to admit I made a big, big mistake on the calculations I made for this day. Mental note: going down is just as hard as going up. As you can see from the attached picture, I seriously misjudged how much we had to go up and down (multiple times) on this day.

Surprisingly after the difficulties of yesterday we started off strongly (luckily no boulders in my rucksack this morning) After fuelling up on horrible prison porridge (better than the french guys peanuts), and set off like hares out of the traps. It was a 2 hour walk up to the lake, with the start being quite a gradual hike and the final climb being a bit more difficult. The hike was through a pleasant valley as we eventually got to a level above the tree line and arrived at Lac d’ Arnatille for elevenses.

After the first lake it was a steep climb over shale and rocks to eventually level out over a second lake. Along the way we met a mad French women we couldn’t understand and an Italian couple sunbathing by the side of the lake. At last, and not that worse for wear, we made it over our first pass. Au revoir Frances, bienvenidos España. We stopped temporally at the pass for a quick apple (get rid f some weight) before carrying on down and then upward towards the second pass of our day, and back over into France. It was difficult at places, but we carried on eventually scrambling up loose brown slate to arrive at the pass. From the here you had the contrast of 2 different sceneries, the brownie green landscape of the Spanish side, then the greyey green landscape of france, with a glacier looming round the corner.

The view from the 1st pass back into France.

The view into Spain from the 1st pass, with the 2nd pass on the horizon.

Adios España, bonjour France. It was at this point we realized how much more hiking was ahead of us today. We had to go down 500 metres to go back up 700 metres at the other side. As was learnt yesterday, this looks a lot easier on a map from the comfort of you own home, compared to seeing it in the cold light of day. From this pass we could see the pass on the other side of the valley (which we later learnt wasn’t our pass), and started to wish there was a few little Indian jones style rope bridges in the Pyrenees.

The 2nd pass. From here you can see the path we have to go up not other side.

The trek down was very difficult and took a long, long, long time. You wouldn’t think that going down would take so long, but it’s hard on the knees and I had a few tumbles along the way. It was nice scenery with the glacier to right and the Refugio to left of the valley, although we always had the thought having to still climb up the other side on the back go our minds. We arrived at the Refugio 3.30, and after a quick stop, set off again upwards towards our supposed next pass. Unfortunately during the stop the little gremlin had been back putting boulders in my rucksack and sand in my shoes. However, what looked like a difficult and hard climb originally actually got worse, since we discovered the hard way that the pass we though we where heading for (which was high enough) wasn’t our pass, and a we had to double back on ourselves over an even higher pass (2734m) next to the glacier. So after climbing the equivalent of 2000 meters in 1 day (if you count all the ups and downs), luckily we still had the light and the weather on our side and managed to get over the pass and see the Refugio on the horizon in the distance. Just a pity we still had to go down and then up to reach it.

So like 2 soldiers who have just finished a tour in Afghanistan, we hobbled towards our safe haven for the night. With it now getting close to darkness any sensible person would set up camp for the night. Obviously we headed straight for the Refugio and had a couple of beers, before putting tent up just as it was going dark. After a few swigs of rum and a 5 star gourmet meal, we managed to rest the mountain goat feet and have a surprisingly good nights sleep.