Travel with Manfred

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Copyright © 2002 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

Oct 12 - 13, 2002

Dancing on Ice

The Lost Mountain

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: Spain, Pyrenees, Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, Monte Perdido, Mont Perdu, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

Two weeks ago we had been on a mountain very close to here. Just a few miles west. Do you remember the song and commercial "What a difference a day makes"? This is how I felt. Two weeks ago we stood on top of Los Infiernos, some 3080m high, and as far as the eye could see everything was dry and without snow. It was hot. It felt like in the midst of summer. Now this seems an eternity ago. It was Saturday morning, 8 a.m. It was getting light outside, and we were in bed in the back of our camping bus. It was raining and cold. It had rained most of the last week and many cities were flooded. In higher elevations certainly there would be a lot of rain. My girl friend asked if we are really going to get up, get out and climb Monte Perdido. Stubbornly I said "Yes". My intonation was not even convincing myself. Having said "yes" I rolled over and pulled the sleeping bag over my shoulder again.

"We are one week too late," I thought within myself. Like in the last days it could be raining all day without stopping. I was not very eager to get soaked to the bone, but I still had some desire and hope to do Monte Perdido. It was getting later and later and we heard other hikers pass by our bus as we were still relaxing under the warm covers. At 10 a.m. we got up. Independent of what we are going to do we needed to have breakfast. I prepared some hot tea and slowly and leisurely we filled our stomach with cereals. While finishing the breakfast the miracle happened. It stopped raining. Now it was time to get ready and pack.

We had the camping bus parked at the entrance to the village Torla. This is as far as you can go with your own vehicle. It was close to 12 o’clock noontime when we finally took the public bus into the National Park "Ordesa and Monte Perdido". Ordesa Canyon is considered by many as the most beautiful valley of all of Spain. I will leave this judgment without comment. You can form your own opinion. Without doubt, though, it is a very beautiful place. Especially at this time of the year, the fall time, when the leaves of the mixed forest turn into all shades of green, yellow, red, and brown. If you ever want to take classical fall pictures, this is the place for you. Beeches, maple, oaks and other trees not only lead to a variety of color but also to a multitude of shapes of the leaves. It is great fun -- not only for kids -- to walk in piles of leaves.

Monte Perdido in Spanish or Mont Perdu in French means nothing else but "Lost Mountain". How it got this name I don’t know. But I am sure it would make an interesting story. Anyway, now you know where the subtitle is coming from. For another unknown reason it is famous. Maybe it is famous because of its catchy name. It is not the highest mountain in the Pyrenees, yet most people who know the area would think of this mountain first before thinking of other higher peaks. Maybe it is famous because the ascent is rather simple. Monte Perdido is the highest limestone mountain in Western Europe. But nobody knows that; so it is not famous for that.

I saw the mountain for the first time on a poster in the year 2000. We were in a small village in the Pyrenees and in the window was a poster of the mountain as an advertisement for a tour operator of trekking and white water rafting trips. The slope was snow covered and steep. I thought "what a lovely mountain, it would make a nice challenge" and my girlfriend said, "are you crazy, we are never going to do that, get it out of your head". Shortly later we have been in the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park and I didn’t even think about the mountain. I was happy enough on that occasion to see the waterfalls in the valley. Yet, the first encounter with this poster got stuck in my head. Having done Mont Blanc recently I knew that Monte Perdido would be a piece of cake and we revived the plan to hike it.

The most common route to Monte Perdido is the following: Torla, Pradera de Ordesa (Ordesa Meadow), Cola de Caballo (Horsetail) Waterfall, Goriz Refuge (2160m), Lago Congelado (Frozen Lake), Monte Perdido (3355m). Starting hiking from Pradera de Ordesa it is a total of some 9 hours to the top and another 6 hours back. While it could be done in a single day, it is a lot more pleasant split into two. Above all if you get out of the car at 11 am like us. Our simple plan was to hike to the Goriz Refuge (5h) the first day and in the morning of the second day ascend to the summit (4h) and then in the afternoon hike all the way back to the van (6h).

While walking through the valley I kept looking at the sky but it stayed blue. More and more I got convinced that it wouldn’t rain during the next hours. Still, the earlier we got to the refuge the better. There was no need to take chances with the weather. We walked rather rapidly through the valley, skipping all the access trails to the waterfalls, and passing all the Kodak-points without stopping. We had seen that part on our previous stay in the valley 2 years ago. Now we were thinking more about the refuge than anything else. Unbelievable but true, it was fully booked. It has room for 70 people and apparently despite all the bad weather lately there were more than 70 people who had the same plan as us.

At the end of the valley, the valley widens slightly like in a cul-de-sac. The pyramid- shaped ever widening Cola de Caballo waterfall is the adorning necklace. Standing in this natural cul-de-sac one is surrounding by vertical cliffs on two sides and a steep incline on the third. On this third side the trail winds its way uphill until eventually you reach the height of the starting point of the waterfall and you can start looking down into the waterfall rather than looking up into it as done earlier standing in the cul-de-sac. The view also changed. For the last hours we had only seen the two steep canyon walls limiting the valley. Now -- at a higher elevation -- the views were less restricted and gave way to a scenery of mountain tops. Most of them were snow covered in a fresh white coat. Yet, the Monte Perdido is out of sight. As we left the Ordesa Valley behind the plateau widened and before we knew it we spotted the refuge.

The bright yellow color used for the window sills and the door frame of the Goriz Refuge (2160m) make it visible from far away. It was still sunny and still the sky was spotlessly blue without a single cloud. At least the first day passed without rain. That was a big relief already. We went to bed early which was a mistake as I lay awake in the sleeping bag for hours without end.

Following our tradition we were one of the last ones out of bed in the morning. I made the first weather check by looking through the window and with satisfaction it looked good. Contradicting all forecasts it was not raining. The sun was still behind the mountains as we started the hike. Given that we were in the shade it was reasonably warm. Well, let’s say it was not freezing. Two hours after leaving the hut we reached the snowline at somewhere around 2700m. We continued another half hour without equipment through a mixture of snow, ice and rocks. Then it was time to put on the crampons. Another half hour later we stood next to the frozen lake with the imaginative name "Frozen Lake".

This is where we went "ahh". We had crossed from the shadow into the sun. Its rays felt warm on the skin, above all if you were wearing shorts like me. Several people were sitting or standing around taking a last break. I felt a bit out of place. Everybody -- including my girlfriend -- was wearing Goretex jackets, long warm pants and I showed off my legs in shorts and wore only a sweater. Besides reaching the sun the real reason for the "ahh" effect was that the ascent trail to the peak comes into view. It is steep, seriously steep and mostly icy, with some snow in a few smaller areas. It is so icy because it stays in the shade for most of the day. Only in the late afternoon the ascent finally is reached by the sun which heats the surface just so that a few hours later the evening and night temperatures turn it into even harder ice than before. Even on a warm day like today daytime temperatures are only a few degrees above freezing point (some 3C, 38F).

I felt so lucky. We were really blessed to have the best of both worlds. Two weeks ago this most likely was a dry, boring ascent over rocks. During the last two weeks incline assumingly was the home to gusty winds as well as show and ice storms. And exactly the day we come to summit Monte Perdido we fine it with the beauty of wonderful undisturbed ice slopes combined with the sunshine and bright blue sky. It is impossible to get a better combination. The incredibly steep ice slopes were beautiful to look at from the bottom, the Frozen Lake. My mouth was watering with pleasant anticipation. This is how I imagined Monte Perdido in my dreams.

My girl friend was less excited. She thought about how many seconds it would take on this slope to reach 100 km/h (60 mph) after slipping. If you don’t know how to stop instantaneously in case of a fall you will have a very fast and very hard and bumpy ride. And maybe she thought also about how many meters of freefall you would go through once you reach the edge of the slope. In some cases the slope declined to the outer side. In these areas you were 10 to 20 meters away from vertical cliffs high enough to kill you or at least break several of your bones. 10 to 20 meters at this inclination. You have very little time to react. Now that I think about I remember why Monte Perdido is so famous. Its fame is based on the fact that this is the deadliest mountain of all of the Pyrenees. In other works, more people die here than on any other peak in the Pyrenees.

We took the "direct route" to the peak. What I mean by that is that we walked in a straight line, the fall line, straight up the icy channels, the shortest line between us and the peak. With crampons and sufficient physical strength this is no problem. When we reached the halfway point of the icy slopes we realized why so many people die here. We met a group of 5 or 6 people. At least 2, maybe 3 of them were without crampons. To make things worse they were absolutely inexperienced and most likely half the team was scared like hell, to afraid to take another step downhill. They were without moving for at least 15 minutes while we were walking uphill. The group leader tried to make steps in the ice with his ice axe to assist the others in moving downhill. One person was crouched on the ground with a ski poles speared into the ice up its handle and with both hands holding on to the ski poles with a frightened grimace on her face. Unemotional and cold-blooded as I am I advised my girlfriend in a low voice, not to be heard by others, "If one of these people comes sliding your way, do not get hit, get out of his or her way as fast as you can. Don’t try to stop a falling person. They will be too fast to be stopped anyway and the only thing that will happen if you attempt it is that they will rip you with them." This team seemed terrified and shaken. If they continue at this pace (and this is the best they can do; trying to rush it would be even more dangerous) it will take them another 2 hours to get back to the Frozen Lake. I was certain that they had not reached the top but somewhere on the way up they reached their limit and said "enough is enough". No far from them we met another group of six people who were turning around because they were told it is impossible to reach the summit without ice axe.

The more I looked at the people on the mountain the more I realized that from the 70 people in the cabin only some 20 will actually make it to the top. We continued our straight line approach. In front was a group of 8 people, well equipped and obviously also experienced. They all had crampons, ice axes, Gore-Tex pants, Gore-Tex jackets with the hoods above their head, gloves, etc. Their leader was moving in a wide zig-zag across and up the chutes. The rest was following in their predecessors footsteps. On every turn of a zig zag they took a minute rest. I only remember them so well because -- in my imagination -- some of the woman gave me the "look at this weird guy, he must be crazy" kind-of look as I passed by them rapidly, in my shorts and sweater, on my straight line to the top.

At 12 o’clock noontime there was no more way to get any higher. We had reached the top. 3,355m (11,007 ft) (42f40’N, 0f05’E). Sunshine surrounded us. Not a single cloud floated in the sky and views went for miles and miles. I was quite happy. Another dream had become reality.

The way back was uneventful. In the steep areas downhill it was enough to use the two back-teeth of the crampones. The rest of the boots would be in the air. To some this is "dancing on ice" to others a nightmare. An hour before sunset we reached our camping bus after a lunch break at the refuge. It didn’t come as a surprise as it started raining as we drove back. Timing is everything!