Thursday August 3, 28.5km/17.7mi

Lac Tort de Rius (437.0km/2320m) (España) to Salardu Village (465.5km/1270m) (España)

After a night of terrible sleep because of strong winds, we were hiking at 7am. We had about 28km to travel today to get to a town tonight, where we had reservations at a hostel. The sunrise on the mountaintops always brings up my mood.

We hiked along the long Lac Tort de Rius for 30 minutes, there were some clouds but I couldn’t tell if they were arriving or departing.

We climbed a small pass, from where I had a perfect view of our lake.

From the pass, I could see the fog covering the next valley. It appeared to be quickly burning off, which was a relief.

As we hiked down into the valley and the lake, the fog receded before us. Perfect timing!

The shifting fog and clouds made some amazing views, and some of my favorite photos of this hike so far.

Down at the lake, it was still slightly foggy, giving the distant island a shroud.

We hiked along the Lac de Mar for an hour, with the fog moving and shifting. At one point it almost became sunny! I was even a little hot.

As soon as we left the lake and descended further into the valley, the fog engulfed us. It was cold and very damp.

The descent continued to Lac de la Restanca, where there was a hut.

I went inside to warm up, and since they had hot beverages, I bought a hot cocoa.

Adam came in a few minutes later, and he bought a garlic soup, it looked really good. Now that we were thoroughly warmed up, it was time to head back into the fog. At least it seemed to be thinning.

It was a cold damp climb up to a small pass, where there was a tiny lake.

We started seeing dozens of other people, I think this area is popular since there are several huts nearby. After climbing another small pass, we left the fog and entered bright sunshine!

All of a sudden, I was hot, and stripped off like 3 layers. It was quite a treat to be able to see so far, after a morning of mostly fog.

I just love how brilliantly blue some of the lakes in the Spanish Pyrenees are.

We had another small climb up to a pass, and upon leaving that valley, we re-entered the fog.

The rest of the day was a gradual descent to the village of Salardu, mostly thru thick fog.

Now that we weren’t hiking uphill anymore, and in the fog, I was cold again.

We passed another lake and hut, this one was called Estany Major de Colomers. The names here are entertaining.

We departed the GR11 here, which crossed the dam.

Our route continued to follow the stream, down a nice little trail with boardwalks over the swampy parts.

For some reason, this little stream flowed out from a manmade cave.

In an hour we were at a paved road, which led us for an hour and a half into town.

It was 6pm, so we checked in to Aran Hostel, which had a very nice kitchen.

Figuring it would be cheaper to go food shopping for dinner and breakfast, I bought a bunch of vegetables, yogurts, eggs, and healthy stuff.

As it turned out, it definitely wasn’t cheaper than eating out for those 2 meals, but it was nice to not have to walk around town in the cold damp weather. While I was making dinner, I snacked on ice cream, Fritos, and cucumbers. The stoves were induction, so cooking dinner was pretty fast.

Adam made his food, and we sat at a table and split a bottle of €3 red wine, it all felt so civilized! Haha. After dinner I had a shower and fell asleep easily, since I hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night in the windstorm.