GRP - Andorra (part II) скачать в хорошем качестве

GRP - Andorra (part II)

GRP days 5 and 6, Sunday and Monday, August 28 - 29, 2022 Les Bordes d'Envalira to Refugi Juclar Stopping at the unguarded Refugi Riu dels Orris two girls had spent the night there, Andrea from Spain and Clara from Belgium. Andrea was hiking the GR11. Clara was doing a shorter hike. They met yesterday at this refuge where they spent the night. By the time Patsy and I reached Refugi d'Illa the sun was out. There were no hikers there; they'd all left already. We each ordered a cup of coffee and draped the tent, etc. over the balcony to dry in the sun and wind. One of the staff gave me the number of the Hotel Peretol where we hoped to spend the night. We climb Pic Pessons (2,864m) and I called Peretol but was told they had no rooms available tonight. I asked if there were any other open hotels nearby and was told I'd have to look into that myself. We worried that we'd run out of food because we'd only started with 5 dinners. We were joined by David from Toulouse. He was out peak-bagging for the weekend. Trading stories, we learned he'd been hiking all over the world. His most recent trip was hiking in Morocco's Atlas mountains, but he'd also done the GR 20, climbed Kilimanjaro, hiked in Bali, Thailand, Reunion Island, Mexico, Costa Rica, a Portuguese island off the coast of Morroco, etc. It was a very steep descent to a series of lakes at the end of which, by Estany Primer, was the Restaurant Pessons. Aha, we wondered if we could get a meal here. Sure enough, they had two restaurants, fast food and fancy food. We chose the latter. I ordered Pot-au-feu and Patsy ordered Confit du Canard. Patsy's choice was far better but I wanted to try Pot-au-feu. So now I know. It turned out that we'd just arrived in the nick of time because the kitchen closed at 3.30 pm. Sometimes we get lucky. From the restaurant, it was only a 2-mile walk to the next Refugi, the unguarded Refugi Pla de les Pedres. A group of people were there, enjoying a meal together. It turned out that they were originally from Bariloche, Argentina. How cool. We'd done a 700-mile bicycle loop starting and ending in Bariloche in 2014. We thought our tent would be more comfortable than sleeping in the refuge so we set off in search of a flat spot. The thunderstorm and rain started at 6.15 pm. We hurriedly set up the tent in a corner of a ski area at 7'200'. It rained for 20 minutes and then the sun came out again. My NeoAir Thermarest sprang a slow leak overnight. The worst is I neglected to bring any Tenacious tape that I use to repair these leaks. We opted to delay breakfast until we reached the town below, Les Bordes d'Envalira, where we had hoped to get a room at Peretol. I called and made a reservation for demi-pension at Refugi de Juclar. Walking out of town we discovered there was another hotel, Hotel Austria, that was not only open but had rooms available last night. Had we only known we would have stayed there rather than camping under a ski lift. After climbing 1,000' we stopped to eat breakfast and it was then that I discovered the tortilla I'd bought was only partially cooked. I hadn't planned on us eating the tortilla all at once because it was quite substantial but we managed it. By the time we'd finished breakfast, it was 11.30 am and the blue sky had succumbed to universal cloud cover. We summited Pic d'Ortafa III (2,691m), the highest of the Ortafa summits, then descended towards Estany de Baix de Siscaró. On our own again, we thought we'd arrive at Refugi de Juclar far too early so we stopped to make coffee. Just like that, the stove roared back to life. The jet must have been blocked and the blockage just cleared. I was so happy and we still thought we had plenty of time so we had a second cup of coffee. By then it was 2 pm. We thought we'd reach Juclar in half an hour, but it was not to be. We spotted the unguarded Refugi de Siscaró across a marshy area so we detoured there to get its hut stamp. Continuing to Juclar was really arduous, up and down steep boulder-studded hillsides. Juclar was very nice and the guardienne, Alex, was from Bariloche. She had commuted back and forth for 5 years before settling in Andorra. Our room slept 6, but Alex said tonight we would have it to ourselves because there were only 9 people and the refuge sleeps 45. A British girl, Lizzy, arrived. She'd stayed in El Serrat last night. I was expecting it would take us two days to reach there. We got chatting and she gave me a roll of Tenacious tape and a pair of scissors. I was able to find and repair the puncture. While Lizzy went for a swim in Estany Primer de Juclar, Patsy and I had showers. €3 for 4 minutes, only 3 minutes for Patsy because she said the water ran cold for the first minute. I used the same shower so I got three and a half minutes of hot water. We ate dinner with Lizzy. She was doing the HRP, the route we did in 2016/2017. Patsy fell in 2016 and partially tore a ligament in her knee, but we completed it in 2017.