Iter Facere

Thursday July 12- Ordesa and the Long Hike

Today we planned an easy hike through the Ordesa National Park. We left at 8:30 with expectations high since the mountains are so spectacular. Our guide is Curro, who we set up through one of the teachers at the kid’s school. They had originally suggested a trip that looked great, but we decided that holding onto a rope while walking along a rope over a chasm wasn’t our speed. So we’re going to to the Foca de Roncon which should take about three hours.
What to say. I loved the hike, but Kathy and Sean hated it. It was too much for us. I should have realized that this might be a larger bite than we could chew when Curro mentioned that we’d be climbing 500 meters before we started moving horizontally along the base of the rock face. As we ascended, gasping, Curro slowed his speed to our level. We finally got up to the top of the ascent. Lovely view. We debated whether we wanted to continue, since we were pretty gassed. Eventually we decided that we’d keep on going. Walking along a narrow path 1500 feet above the valley floor does tend to induce vertigo, but the views are spectacular. Its as if you’re on top of the world. I’ve always wanted to walk up along one of these huge mountains. Of course, I was only half way up. The path just kept going on and on. Instead of a nice walk through the woods, it became a tiny, narrow trail along the edge of the rocks, in some places with a sheer drop. I don’t think you’d fall 500 feet if you slipped, but it would be far enough to hurt. Its hard to enjoy the view when you have to keep looking down to avoid tripping. Each time you look up however, the view is amazing. The mountains are made of calzia, which I think means calcite. It is a soft rock, so it erodes quickly. Everywhere you look there are carved rock faces. It is spectacular. I didn’t have a watch, so I had no idea what time it was. It turns out our three hour tour turned into a 6 hour trek. Oops. I guess we’re a bit slow. Halfway through the hike we came to a waterfall, which marked the way down. Again the view was terrific. Kathy and Sean however were miserable. Neither of them enjoys this sort of thing so they were not comfortable at all. We finally completed our trek and got back to our hotel room to vegetate until dinner. The advantage of the tourist town displayed itself again as we have an internet connection in our room. We got a message from Jenny. Our adventures continue to pale in comparison to hers. We’re a bunch of city slickers, obviously. I’ll have to console myself with the duck with apple cream at the restaurant tonight. That maybe is a better place for me than on a mountain trail. But we decided at dinner that we do have a family lore story.

posted by Jim @ 7:53 AM