Monday July 31, 20.9km/13.0mi

Camping El Forcallo (368.1km/1680m) (España) to Lac Des Isclots (389.0km/2398m) (France)

I left the campground a little after 8am, and for a little while it was a pleasant road walk. Morning hiking is the best, and it was really cool to see a diagonal shadow cast by the mountains.

Once I left the road, I passed by this little pasture area with a bunch of old stone buildings. Apparently it is a UNESCO heritage area.

I was still hiking on the GR11, so it was a nice trail, and now it started to climb.

I came to a junction where I would leave the GR11. The HRP goes directly up this hillside to the right of the creek.

By now the morning was getting pretty warm and I had to hike uphill with no shade. I definitely got sweaty on the climb, but fortunately I was parallel to the creek most of the way and was able to get cold water whenever I wanted.

At one point there was a very short talus field to scramble through and it was a ton of fun!

I continued to follow the creek uphill, which by now had become quite steep.

Near the top of the pass I caught up to a German couple, and we all marveled at the view behind us and what we had just hiked up.

Yup, The view from the top of the pass was pretty grand. There was even a little interpretive marker that explained the history of this pass and how it affected people living on either side of the country border.

Looking ahead down into the next valley:

I descended from the pass on some very steep switchbacks for about half an hour, before the trail finally leveled out in the bottom of the valley. Once again I was following a creek which was perfect for this hot day.

I came across this little cabin, which was a nice surprise. It’s called the Refuge de Prat-Cazeneuve.

Coincidentally it was also about lunchtime, so I decided to take a break there and eat.

The upstairs was a sleeping loft with room for 10 people, it was actually pretty nice! It was similar to some of the huts in Tasmania.

After lunch I continued further down the valley, and now the small stream had grown to a larger creek with a bunch of waterfalls.

There were more interpretive signs at odd intervals. I ignored most of them because it takes me a long time to read the Spanish version (can’t read the French at all), but this one was about marmots!

I descended down the valley further, and as I got close to the next hut I started seeing people.

And then around the corner, I saw these two massive pipes coming down the mountainside.

As I got closer I could see that they flowed into a hydroelectric building.

Yup, massive pipes.

The hydroelectric building and the hut were right next to each other, separated only by some ancient railroad tracks.

I could tell it was a pretty old building, but the guy in charge of the hut did a good job at keeping it nice.

I hung out at the hut (Refuge de la Soula) for almost an hour while I had a snack, bought a cold soda, and charged my phone. I saw that it was after 3:30pm, and I still had 2 hours of hiking to do, so I started up the next climb. It was a very gradual climb on some nice switchbacks.

I made pretty good time up the switchbacks and just over an hour later I arrived at Lac de Caillauas.

It was so blue! And apparently it is a manmade lake, since there was a large dam at its outlet.

I hiked around the lake, to get up to the next lake. Once I was a little ways above it, it looked even more deeply blue.

Almost an hour after leaving the previous lake, I arrived at Lac des Isclots (lake of small islands).

It was a little after 6pm, and I decided to stop and camp here. It was tempting to keep going up to the next lake another 30 minutes away, but I had found a perfect camping spot. It was near the lake but also 30m/100ft above it. And much to my happy surprise, Adam showed up an hour later!

We caught up each other on our experiences over the past two days, and made dinner. Three friendly guys from Slovenia were camped nearby and walked over to say hello, and we had a nice conversation while watching the setting sun. Tomorrow is expected to be one of the most difficult days of the entire trail, so I am going to bed early to get an early start in the morning.