Forcallo Camping – Puente de San Chaime, via refugio estos

Oh lawd. I was not ready for that alarm to ring at 06. It was still pitch black outside, the moon hung high in the night sky, and every car camper was still sound asleep. It had rained on and off in the night, and my breath made little steam puffs in the cold morning air. I heard Annie and Christine rummage around in their tents as I slurped down my coffee in the dark while still huddled in my puffy and sleeping bag. Ready or not, the day was here.

The three of us greeted one another with scrunched-up morning faces and energy bars in hand. Quick emergency French braid in the bathroom, and we were off. Through the forest a short bounce away from the campground lay miles of rolling hills with tiny white farmhouses. We passed the pastoral-looking Refugio de Viadós where a group of French hikers sat tying their shoelaces outside. Christine called “BonJOUWRRRR” in a drawl reminiscent of Inglorious Basterds, and I burst out laughing at the horrified French faces. They indignantly shouted back “non, bonjooooour!” and Christine kept drawing out her reply as grotesquely as only Americans can butcher a foreign language. The sun hadn’t yet risen, and already my day was made.

Annie strode off on her enormous quads while Christine and I chatted merrily as we ambled through tall grasses on the wet trail. Everything was lush and soaked from the rains, the path undulated up and down the hillside as a glorious amber sunrise rose in the East directly ahead.

I told Christine about my mom’s heart failure. A sneaky disease, it was terminal, but no one new how long you had. The news had shattered my already broken world in the summer of 2021, and I could never tell the story without tearing up. Christine stopped, turned around and looked deeply into my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Kris. I’m truly so sorry.” It was such a simple moment, but I could tell she meant it with every fibre of her being, and I felt an instant flood of warmth for her. What a gem of a human. It takes so little to make others feel like you truly see them, and Christine clearly knew that. More people like this in the world please.

The path climbed up the valley alongside the river Zinqueta de Añes Cruces towards today’s pass. Annie and Christine clearly had very different hiking styles – I hadn’t seen the former since Viadós that morning - but they still managed travel as a pair through compromise and “hike your own hike” principles. The climb up into the sunrise passed effortlessly behind Christine’s steady and sustainable strides. The pass itself, Puerto de Chistau (2592), bared itself with intense gusts of wind. Not ideal for a lunch spot. We continued down on the other side, Christine hopping between the rocks like a mountain goat while I staggered after her on achy knees down the scree slope. An enormous mountain vista opened ahead of us, an endless valley of sunshine and our glorious trail. Annie and her supply of Pro bars sat perched on a big flat rock. We discussed abortion politics in the US and munched through pan y jamon. I thought I felt a tug in my shorts as I got up from the rock but didn’t think anymore of it. We shall return to this detail in a later post.

As we passed down into the valley, the landscape did seem to transform into Christine’s current Colorado home. But the poor gal was feeling increasingly weak as we passed Refugio de Estos, where yet another sourly, monolingual old man sold us expensive diet Cokes. The squattie toilets there reminded me of the GR20. I though back with a smile at Michael, my British fellow hiker and germophobe who was so afraid of being splashed by the flush that he would pull the string with a hand on the door and sprint out before it flushed. Good times.

Christine fell behind as Annie charged ahead again. I cruised in the middle. We walked through gorgeous sunny pine landscape against a trickle of day hikers (including a barefoot man!). A wooden bridge took us over a sparkling blue river, through green meadows beneath granite peaks. In a wild flip from yesterday, I felt so centred and happy alongside my two new friends on this beautiful trail. I eventually caught up with Annie who stood puzzled at a junction, and despite her industrious pace we got talking. The more we talked, the more she tuned in. She seemed taken aback at how much we could relate to each other, she was clearly used to others not connecting with her worldview, as her literal and figurative pace would always send her out alone and leave mellower people behind. We both thru-hiked because we relished the euphoria and extraordinariness of peak experiences. It had never occurred to us to not do something because we were afraid. Neither of us identified with the woman-oriented narrative of lacking the confidence to grab what we wanted from life. She said she felt like a gender traitor. We both lit up more and more as we spoke, we were nearly running now. I’d never met anyone so fiercely unapologetic as her except myself.

The afternoon had reached peak roasting point by the time the two of us made it to the humongous campground at Puente de San Chaime. We had just paid for camp spots when Christine called Annie to tell her she had booked a dorm room at a hotel back up the road. I felt incredibly guilty at the though of freeriding, but I was burning money by the day. Christine generously cashed out for all three of us at the picturesque hotel sitting on top of a lonely hill overlooking the valley. We instantly transformed the six-bed dorm into a nest of sports bras, energy bars, and grime. Every surface housed a clothing item drying after a sink wash. The hotel was also home to a sedate golden Labrador who would walk over to wherever the pizza was and refuse to engage with anyone who didn’t feed her. It was the epitome of chill.

But we weren’t all as lucky. Christine’s nausea got worse and worse as the afternoon went on, and eventually she decided to forgo the remaining days to Espot and take the bus directly to Barcelona. The invincible Annie suddenly looked insecurely at me and asked me what my plans were. I said of course we would go together. Wanting company is not a sign of weakness. Both of us were more than capable of doing this solo, but no way we would pass up the thrill of our new acquaintance.

I sat on the terrace as twilight fell and thought about my new hiking companions and how I would have loved to continue with the both of them. Christine was gentle, someone who didn’t force things but rather let them come to her. In many ways I’d strived to be more like her in recent years. Annie was the person I was born as – intense and hot-blooded, a go-getter who saw what she wanted and grabbed it. She had big miles to make in order to get to Espot on time for her return flight, and now I was in for that deal too. We would be doing five day stretches in three days. I was in for a wild ride.