HRP 2013, Post trip report (PART 3)

Pictures from my HRP trip: Picassa link

Video of HRP trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21DkUnScqhw

The walk from Gavarnie to Salardu was the most intense (and rewarding) section so far. And according to the book the next section would be much of the same, so I was excited. Salardu was a very nice place with a public pool and rarest of all in the Pyrenees: an actual library, I was really happy to contact some people and upload some pictures of my trip so far. As we did after each section we took a rest day in Salardu. For food there was a bigger town further down the valley just a 20 minute bus ride away (again, Joosten doesn't mention this in his book, the main reason being he hates everything but rocks and trees). We would also have to carry food for 9 days, which was annoying but I guess if your gonna carry extra weight it might as well be food!

After Salardu we would be entering Andorra. In the book it was described as quite a desolate place with few markers, but we found quite the opposite. Where before Andorra we did not see a lot of people because of the unusual snow height for this time of year, in Andorra we saw quite a few group hikers, and with the newly added paint flashes we had no trouble finding the right way. The scenery was also nothing like the book had described... it was much much better. It was unbelievable, It was the first time I could sort of relate to the author of the book because you do kind of look around and think why do we need all these towns and buildings when you have mountains like this?! The trail was also very nice, and because of the recent (2008 I think) re painting of the trail we had no difficulties finding our way.

After 8 days of carrying food and not eating any hot meals I was really looking forward to the next town. After a descent which seem to take very very long we finally arrived in a little place just outside the border of Andorra called L'Hospitalet-près-l'Andorre. It had a hostel, 1 restaurant, 1 small shop and a train station, which made it a popular starting point for hikers and cyclers. When we limped into town we immediately went straight for the restaurant, where they promptly informed us that they where out of bread....what?
And since it was siesta time we had to wait 3 hours for everything else to open. Since eating my hiker food I had left was not an option (I refuse to eat hiker food in town, it's just....wrong) I decided to try and find some WIFI in stead. After a long wait the hostel finally opened and we where greeted by a very nice lady who even knew some German. She made us a very nice meal and took us in a car to a large town that had several big grocery stores. We did not feel like taking a rest day in this town since there was....nothing of interest, so the next day we loaded up on food and headed out for the final section, an 8 day hike through the Catalonian mountains.

Hostel

The last week we hiked for a couple of days with a very interesting man from England, named Martin. He has hiked all over the world and was incredibly fit for his age. He seemed to be able to keep up with my downhill running mode forever, which is crazy considering he's 63 I believe.
There where two big climb left in this last section, one was called Pic Carlit. And it's apparently very famous in Catalonia. We decided to camp right below the final 1 hour climb so we could be the first ones up there in the morning.

View of Pic Carlit, from where we set up camp.

The next day we did indeed arrive first on the summit. It was an incredible experience, very calm and relaxing after an intense climb. From the top we looked at the other side of the mountain to see if we could see any hikers, we knew this was a popular mountain and a lot of people climb from that side of the mountain and go back. We did see some hikers, and then some more...and then a whole lot more. We could see at least 30 hikers in our first view alone! The first guy we met going up (when we where going down) looked very annoyed, I think he wanted to be the first one to the top haha. After that I started counting... to the base of the climb (which was like 5km) I counted well over 200 people. It was like the camino all over again. 1 good thing did come out of it, since it was such a tourist trap there where some restaurants at the bottom of the valley. After some beers we went on and away from the madness.

The next couple of days where filled with anxiety about finishing this incredible journey. Each day took us closer to the end and gave us the familiar mixed emotions of sadness and happiness about an ending adventure.

Only 8 hours to go!

We ended up hiking our last day with a bunch of other people congratulating us on the accomplishment. We where so exited we didn't care about the heat and lack of water. I think we took one 15 minute break the entire day. We also hiked 8 hours of trail in only 4 hours. The ending was kind of surreal, the transition between mountain life and basically beach party town life was very rapid. Nevertheless we had done it, 41 days, including 6 rest days, of hiking through the most beautiful landscape I've seen thus far.

The end...

After a dive in the ocean and a good night sleep it was time to say goodbye to my good friend Uli. He shared a big part of my adventure, and we've been through the best and worst of it together. He was headed north to see some cities in france while I decided to hitchhike to Barcelona to find a proper beach to lay on for a couple of days.

And so ends another adventure. This was one of more danger than I had thought, the snow scared me at first but after I learned to "trust" it more, it became a helping hand. The locals where very interesting people you won't find in a lot of places, they seem to truly get the mountain lifestyle. I met a lot of people, some of which I will never forget. I feel like I've learned a lot on this trip. Most of all the landscape was just unbelievable, It's good to know that such beauty exists somewhere.