Saturday August 5, 24.0km/14.9mi

Plan de Beret Cabane (471.5km/1890m) (España) to Along River Barranc de Comamala (495.5km/1740m) (España)

As expected the morning dawned sunny and very cold. We walked in shade for the first couple of hours, and in many places the grass was crunchy with frost.

After climbing uphill for awhile I warmed up, and once we got high enough the Sun found us too. We hiked by lake Estany de Baciver, which had this lone dead tree. It reminded me of the lonely tree in Wanaka, New Zealand.

Further uphill we hiked by some small lakes where the path faded out.

Our next task was to climb the mountain Tuc de Marimanya. There was no trail, so we went straight uphill on a talus slope.

It was quite steep and took a little while, but once we were on top the views were totally worth it.

And looking ahead to the ridge we would be walking soon.

The summit!

It was very windy and we quickly left the summit, and started walking the ridge.

When I wasn’t paying close attention to my footsteps, I was able to sneak a look at all the views from the ridge.

As soon as we descended off the ridge the wind had stopped.

Soon after we stopped for lunch in the middle of a talus field.

In the last town I had bought extra cheese and even found some tortillas, so I was able to finally have a proper lunch again. Most of the grocery stores on this trail have been very lacking in normal hiking foods. After lunch we had an hour of traversing some talus….

….and steep grass.

We climbed up to a short pass, and were able to get a view of the rest of our afternoon hiking.

It was an easy downhill hike, and we had a trail to follow again!

Near the bottom of the descent, we came across a farm that was keeping some bees.

We kept descending into the valley, and toward the town of Alós d’Isil.

We were quite a bit lower in elevation now so it was pretty hot, and nice to have the shade of the forest.

As we got closer to town the trail became wider and more established….

…. until it eventually just became a street.

I knew there was a refuge to stay in this town, but it was too early to stop for the day. What I didn’t know was that they had cold drinks, so Adam and I stopped and got a beer and some chips. Life is good.

We had an hour of relaxing and chatting about all the interesting experiences so far on this trail. And of course the usual
random questions like, what two Olympic sports would you combine? (High diving and shot put, of course). It was a nice walk out of town.

We had a roadwalk for about half an hour, and then started a climb up to the next pass.

We got about halfway up the climb and decided to camp at a spot in the trees, in case it becomes windy tonight.

We didn’t cover much distance today, but hiked a ton of talus, and had a good time taking alot of breaks.