Refugio de Goriz – Llanos de La Larri, via Refugio de Pineta

Deary me, as my Scottish friend Gemma would say. I was absolutely smashed by the time I had snoozed the alarm once and crawled out of my tent into the grey pre-dawn light. Goriz was already swarming with activity, but I felt stiff and fogged up after a night of ferocious wind and more rain. It was bitterly cold and the grass was still soaking wet. Making my morning cup of noodles was a precarious balancing act in sheltering my stove’s flame from wind while perching myself and my gear on the thin wooden bench near the showers. My feet were frozen in my flip flops, and I stared slit-eyed as two large groups made their way up the steep path towards the Monte Perdido summit. Just as I was about to slurp down my stringy carbs, a bird came flying right up to my hand! Except, it wasn’t a bird, it was a black and white moth the size of a fucking sparrow. I screamed and flung out half of my noodles over the bench. Everyone stopped and stared (the moth had instantly disappeared). They probably thought I was still shell-shocked from last night.

Everyone else was headed towards the summit or back down into the canyon. I set out alone on the trail to the northeast, climbing up past wet meadows and baby waterfalls. The trail still lay in shadow for the first 45 minutes. Looking back towards Goriz and Ordesa was an incredible sight, the rock formations seemingly spread out like ripples on water where someone has thrown a rock.

The sunrise was absolutely stunning. I felt a burst of energy as the golden light shot over the mountains and swept across all the land I had already walked. Giant slate formations formed a rock corridor up towards Collado de Arrablo (2343 m). A lone signpost indicated the way of the old GR11, now considered too dangerous for the average hiker. The new variant followed a long and tiring route into the Arrablo ravine and the river valley of Fuenblanca. The trail passed over the stony round col and downwards into the ravine. The ground was soaked and squished beneath my feet as I picked my way down, trying to keep track of the marker stripes in the blinding sun exposure.

Unearthly mountain formations popped up on the crest to my left as I inched down the climbing grade steep path. Chains were bolted into the rock, and every step over wet ground sent my stomach lurching. The GR11 was a natural highlight reel day in and day out, but it also was absolutely not a trail for newbie hikers. The trail dived down from the alpine mountain terrain and into the Fuenblanca valley, where fern bushes and sheep replaced the wild alpine scenery. This day was particularly arduous as I had lost all altitude from the first col, and now has a second one to traverse before the trail plummeted down even further into the Pineta valley. The amount of altitude gained and lost today would reach an absolutely stupid tally by nightfall.

The trail up towards Collado de Añisclo (2,453m) was an ascent of nearly 1000m. I was panting like a dog as I leapt up the steep hillside among the countless waterfalls of Rio Bellos. I had wanted a test of my trail legs, and I got it. Vertical white mountain walls loomed on both sides of the valley slopes as I dug in with all my might. The climb took me almost two hours of obliterating effort, and the sun was baking by the time I reached the rocky col. The mountain dropped off into a sheer precipice of loose scree over 1200m into Pineta. Directly across from me on the other side of the valley lay a pretty green mountain meadow. An older hiker from Austria sat panting next to the col cairn, a chatterbox who immediately delved into his encounters with giardia. Only in the thru-hiking world do you talk about diarrhoea within five minutes of meeting somebody.

I was just about to sit down on the col for lunch when I felt a familiar buzzing in my hip belt pocket. The 11.30 alarm that goes off every day. Antidepressants are a bit like birth control pills it seems, you should take them at the same time each day for optimal brain chemistry. Or whatever it is, no one really knows. They just work. The pandemic absolutely crushed me, but medication was a significant part of my coming back to life. I’ll take on anyone who thinks severe clinical depression can be cured by a meditation app or home yoga. The meds had saved me from drowning and they were as much a part of my life as my daily walks. I held the small white pill up against the mountain view. Natural and synthetic happiness in one frame. How meta.

The guidebook helpfully read “Ahead of you awaits what is probably the toughest descent of the whole GR11 (1,200 metres in 2.5 kilometres).” Thanks Brian. Every inconvenience was officially Brian’s fault now. Sue me.

The descent was undoubtedly the most heinous downhill ordeal I have ever endured on any hike. In my early 20s, it would take almost two weeks of thru-hiking for my knees to start hurting. On the GR11 it took two days. I braced and braced against the loose sand and rock until my ligaments screamed and my quads were on fire. The trail was barely more than a slippery rockface. I double and triple checked the locking mechanisms on my trekking poles to make sure they wouldn’t collapse and catapult me to my death when I leaned all my weight on them. The scree became rock, which became larger rocks as the trail dipped back below treeline. I was in so much pain I could barely stagger over them, my knees wobbled like cooked noodles by the time I finally limped out onto the riverbed flat.

The river at Las Inglatas was a gorgeous pale blue and could not have been more inviting. I left the trail to find a secluded spot on the rocky banks. After a moments hesitation, I wrung off all my drenched clothes down to my briefs. The river was so shallow that I could only lie in it on my back, but oh lawd that was heavenly. It was only me, the rushing water, the green forest, and the grand mountains. I sat down on a rock to dry in the sun, confident that my spot was completely private. When suddenly, out of nowhere, a bespectacled youth (male, 21 ish) burst onto the riverbank, and stood directly facing my bare chest. We both froze for an eternal second before he bounded through the river – boots and all – and literally ran into the forest on the other side. The situation was too absurd not to laugh at. He could have looked a little happier all things considered!

Now that my cover was blown, I slicked my wet hair back and headed over to Pineta. Big honey-coloured butterflies flew before me, leading the way through the forest towards the refuge. It lay bathed in sunlight on the edge of the forest next to a road. The bespectacled youth sat at one of the picnic tables deep in concentration over his maps. I desperately wanted to avoid another fee and asked the hut warden if there was any place to camp nearby. He didn’t even look at me. “YOU CAN’T!” he barked and turned away, leaving me hanging with my pan y jamon sandwich. I looked around. I was beat, having just completed one of the longest trail days. It was roasting hot. I suddenly hated the hut warden’s guts. How dare you be such a shitty and unhelpful parody of a grumpy old man when you made the tourism industry your living. Blast it, he wasn’t getting a cent of my money. I’d surely wild camped more times than this guy had gotten laid. I threw my backpack on and strode off down the road deeper into the Pineta valley.

There were tourists everywhere, car parks were overflowing with urban-looking families and youth groups trying their hand at nature. The “tourism office” was about the size and shape of an ice cream shack, and the woman behind the till was another despairingly monolingual mis-hire. She sent me the wrong way before I managed to wrangle together google maps and Brian’s sparce advice. Right. Just beyond the old church, Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Pineta, lay the rocky forest path which would take me up to La Larri, the big green meadow I had seen across the valley from Añisclo col earlier in the day.

I flipped back and forth between gasping for air and muttering angrily on my massive climb up through the sun-dappled forest. I was going way too fast for the amount of water I had, but all I could think of was getting away from this stupid system of clueless people who couldn’t so much as speak a basic sentence in a second language. Stupid hut warden. Stupid camping restrictions. Finally the forest thinned out, and I stood on the edge of the meadow plateau. Horses and cows grazed deeper into the valley towards Llanos de La Larri, the waterfall at the innermost base. Day hikers trickled out as the shadows grew long. I sat on a rock in the wide river and waited and waited for people to clear out so that I could find a spot to pitch my tent. Another French GR11 hiker going the opposite way came over for a chat and to filter water, recounting his recent story of explosive diarrhoea, hand gestures and all. God almighty.

A tall, strawberry blonde guy around my age walked over and asked, in an unmistakable German accent, if he could borrow my water filter. His name was Ferdinand, and I ended up filtering 3,5L for him (seriously, how are people this unprepared for the outdoors). He was in truth the best company I’d had in a while. When I was sure the rangers wouldn’t come looking, I pitched my tent behind an old stone barn on a flat spot overlooking the Pineta valley. I could see the trail I’d descended earlier today, a grotesque slab of loose rock from the valley floor to nearly 2500m. Let’s never do that again.

The evening was beautiful. Twilight sunk over the spectacular valley, the stone barn, and us. A family with an adorable dog came by, and I couldn’t stop myself from kissing its silky ears and head. First physical contact in 15 days.

“Aren’t you worried about the cows?” Ferdinand called before we went to sleep. He lay in his bivvy bag a couple of metres away.

“Nah!” I called back. Of all my trail worries, cows were not one of them. I’d slept next to livestock a hundred times with no issue. Plus, the cows were almost a km away into the valley. I felt snug as a bug and clever for having dodged the camping prohibition.

“Well… at least I have a tall, blonde girl to protect me”. Nice one.

If only justice were as kind.