There was a time when I could have been accused of setting unrealistic goals for adventures in the mountains, but the tables have turned. Seemingly easy hikes are transformed into substantial epics when provided with a squirming, occasionally uncooperative, 35 pound backpack to carry.
The morning of Rosie's birthday, we set out (at her request) from our tent on the Spanish border for the town of Porte Puymorens, an arbitrary destination about 25 minutes away by train, but a full day's hike (at baby-carrying speed) with about 4000ft of elevation. Sam alternated between engagement, sleep and frustration and so we modified our progress accordingly - moving fast while he dozed and feeling mildly concerned when he shouted out "DOG!!" in wolf country. We stopped for lunch in an unmanned cabane, stocked with ancient furniture and emergency packets of cigarettes.
We walked for hours through tiny villages and high pastures, eventually to a pass with a long steep descent to the village, where we arrived late in the afternoon - really hoping that there would be some cake. A bright yellow sign pointed dramatically to "PAIN! 24/24", which seemed promising (if a little too good to be true), followed by a second and a third with the same sentiment.
We eventually arrived at the center of the village, which appeared to be a yellow automatic baguette dispensing machine, surrounded by a group of teenagers who lacked a better place to skulk around. Slightly crestfallen, we marched on to the only other noted place on Google maps - a bar on the highway advertising ice cream.
"Avez-vous des glaces?", we asked enthusiastically.
"Non, pas des glaces.", replied the grumpy barman who seemed to resent our presence (and refusal to order a beer) enormously.
We ordered some peanuts and coffee for survival and walked along the highway for a mile and a half in the rain to wait for the train back to the campsite, bemused about how an entire town in a beautiful valley could be quite so hellbent on turning away any visitors.
Our emplacement reservation ended the next day, so we looked for an excuse to stay in the mountains a little longer - settling on the idea of attempting to get to a refuge (a staffed hike-in mountain hut). We called to book a couple of beds, and they appeared to acknowledge that we had a baby and that I was vegetarian, but given their rapidly spoken French, distorted by their satellite phone, we had no idea what they planned to with this information.
Slightly concerned that both Sam and I wouldn't get to eat for the next 3 days, we called into the bakery at the bottom of the valley to check what time they would be open in the morning.
"Normalement, on ouvre à 7h".
"Et demain?", I asked - keenly aware that this woman was the sole gatekeeper of all the food in the village.
"Normalement, Oui." She wouldn't be held down. It increasingly seems that if a business is open in the mountains here, one should count oneself lucky.
We set off for the hut the next morning with an ample supply of patisseries (the bakery gods were smiling upon us). A helicopter flew above our heads carrying provisions to the hut and making it quite clear that in this case the giant carbon budget of our dinner would make it completely irrelevant whether I was vegetarian or not (I briefly considered a long term exception where I was allowed to eat meat in mountain huts, just to be less awkward).
The walk in was pleasant and eerily familiar to Colorado, through groves of silver birch trees which appear almost identical to aspen, though apparently entirely unrelated. We arrived in the early afternoon, greeted by a surly girl with jet black hair in her mid-20s, sucking on a cigarette which had almost burned down to her fingers and apparently having missed her calling of working in the kind of nightclub where people don't feel the need to wash. She showed us to the dorm with a mix of disdain and self hatred which left everyone questioning their life choices.
The dinner was well organized, with set places and a fixed timeline. The apparently limitless wine, which was bewilderingly cheap given it had come in by helicopter, helped make the French conversation easier (or made us less aware of our mistakes, and more confident in simply shouting incoherently at our dinner companions).
At 9pm, the room emptied dramatically, leaving us and a group of Spaniards in the corner. Failing to obey the golden rule of "Do what the French people do", we stayed up for another hour, instantly regretting the decision as we negotiated our way back through a silent hut in the pitch black to a dormitory of 8 bunks with a tentatively sleeping baby. We finally got into bed, assuming that they all hated us.
We spent the next day taking turns to hike and talking to the occupants of the hut - largely geeky, hillwalking types attempting some or all of the GR10 (one of the coast-to-coast routes through the Pyrenees). Sam was well received (at least in the daytime), as we repeatedly iterated through the small list of non-dangerous things a 16 month old can do in a mountain hut.
The next day, we walked out, narrowly getting over the pass before the sunshine transitioned to thunder and torrential rain. As our lightweight gear became instantly saturated (though Sam was fine in his king-like backpack-tent), it became clear that French hikers are eminently prepared for all-day rain in a way that Coloradans are not, with huge raincovers which covered both their bodies and backpacks.
After several hours, we arrived at our soggy tent and called an abrupt end to our mountain holiday, packing away our soaking stuff while Sam voluntarily got into his bike Chariot for the first time we could remember. We made our way to the bus stop which had temporarily been occupied by a group of guys who had set up some sort of impromptu banquet inside, apparently with wine and multiple courses.
I bought a ticket from the machine, showed it to the attendant, "Non, ça ne marchera pas". Mildly confused, I explained that it was the only ticket available on the machine which vaguely matched our circumstances, and asked whether she could change it for the right one, "Non". Deciding English politeness was getting me nowhere, I went for French drama:
"Il est impossible d'acheter le bon billet, que doit-on faire? C'est ridicule, n'est-ce pas?" which, amazingly, seemed to work.
After 15 minutes of calling different offices, and checking the machine to ensure that I wasn't making it up, she printed us another ticket (which she apparently had the power to do all along). Narrowly catching the bus with a huge pile of bicycles, trailers and damp possessions, I collapsed into the seat while Sam attempted to climb out of the window and Rosie threatened to plan another holiday.
The morning of Rosie's birthday, we set out (at her request) from our tent on the Spanish border for the town of Porte Puymorens, an arbitrary destination about 25 minutes away by train, but a full day's hike (at baby-carrying speed) with about 4000ft of elevation. Sam alternated between engagement, sleep and frustration and so we modified our progress accordingly - moving fast while he dozed and feeling mildly concerned when he shouted out "DOG!!" in wolf country. We stopped for lunch in an unmanned cabane, stocked with ancient furniture and emergency packets of cigarettes.
 |
| A cabane |
We eventually arrived at the center of the village, which appeared to be a yellow automatic baguette dispensing machine, surrounded by a group of teenagers who lacked a better place to skulk around. Slightly crestfallen, we marched on to the only other noted place on Google maps - a bar on the highway advertising ice cream.
"Avez-vous des glaces?", we asked enthusiastically.
"Non, pas des glaces.", replied the grumpy barman who seemed to resent our presence (and refusal to order a beer) enormously.
We ordered some peanuts and coffee for survival and walked along the highway for a mile and a half in the rain to wait for the train back to the campsite, bemused about how an entire town in a beautiful valley could be quite so hellbent on turning away any visitors.
Our emplacement reservation ended the next day, so we looked for an excuse to stay in the mountains a little longer - settling on the idea of attempting to get to a refuge (a staffed hike-in mountain hut). We called to book a couple of beds, and they appeared to acknowledge that we had a baby and that I was vegetarian, but given their rapidly spoken French, distorted by their satellite phone, we had no idea what they planned to with this information.
Slightly concerned that both Sam and I wouldn't get to eat for the next 3 days, we called into the bakery at the bottom of the valley to check what time they would be open in the morning.
"Normalement, on ouvre à 7h".
"Et demain?", I asked - keenly aware that this woman was the sole gatekeeper of all the food in the village.
"Normalement, Oui." She wouldn't be held down. It increasingly seems that if a business is open in the mountains here, one should count oneself lucky.
We set off for the hut the next morning with an ample supply of patisseries (the bakery gods were smiling upon us). A helicopter flew above our heads carrying provisions to the hut and making it quite clear that in this case the giant carbon budget of our dinner would make it completely irrelevant whether I was vegetarian or not (I briefly considered a long term exception where I was allowed to eat meat in mountain huts, just to be less awkward).
 |
| La refuge des Bezines |
The walk in was pleasant and eerily familiar to Colorado, through groves of silver birch trees which appear almost identical to aspen, though apparently entirely unrelated. We arrived in the early afternoon, greeted by a surly girl with jet black hair in her mid-20s, sucking on a cigarette which had almost burned down to her fingers and apparently having missed her calling of working in the kind of nightclub where people don't feel the need to wash. She showed us to the dorm with a mix of disdain and self hatred which left everyone questioning their life choices.
 |
| Dinner |
At 9pm, the room emptied dramatically, leaving us and a group of Spaniards in the corner. Failing to obey the golden rule of "Do what the French people do", we stayed up for another hour, instantly regretting the decision as we negotiated our way back through a silent hut in the pitch black to a dormitory of 8 bunks with a tentatively sleeping baby. We finally got into bed, assuming that they all hated us.
We spent the next day taking turns to hike and talking to the occupants of the hut - largely geeky, hillwalking types attempting some or all of the GR10 (one of the coast-to-coast routes through the Pyrenees). Sam was well received (at least in the daytime), as we repeatedly iterated through the small list of non-dangerous things a 16 month old can do in a mountain hut.
The next day, we walked out, narrowly getting over the pass before the sunshine transitioned to thunder and torrential rain. As our lightweight gear became instantly saturated (though Sam was fine in his king-like backpack-tent), it became clear that French hikers are eminently prepared for all-day rain in a way that Coloradans are not, with huge raincovers which covered both their bodies and backpacks.
After several hours, we arrived at our soggy tent and called an abrupt end to our mountain holiday, packing away our soaking stuff while Sam voluntarily got into his bike Chariot for the first time we could remember. We made our way to the bus stop which had temporarily been occupied by a group of guys who had set up some sort of impromptu banquet inside, apparently with wine and multiple courses.
I bought a ticket from the machine, showed it to the attendant, "Non, ça ne marchera pas". Mildly confused, I explained that it was the only ticket available on the machine which vaguely matched our circumstances, and asked whether she could change it for the right one, "Non". Deciding English politeness was getting me nowhere, I went for French drama:
"Il est impossible d'acheter le bon billet, que doit-on faire? C'est ridicule, n'est-ce pas?" which, amazingly, seemed to work.
After 15 minutes of calling different offices, and checking the machine to ensure that I wasn't making it up, she printed us another ticket (which she apparently had the power to do all along). Narrowly catching the bus with a huge pile of bicycles, trailers and damp possessions, I collapsed into the seat while Sam attempted to climb out of the window and Rosie threatened to plan another holiday.
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