This post describes a 110 kilometer trek around the pyrenean Principality of Andorra. The trek is called the Andorra Grand Route de Pays, or the Andorra GRP. The official guides propose you complete the Andorra GRP in 7 days. If you are 20 years old and male and you go into the wilderness in search of pain, then by all means plan to complete this trek in 7 full days of walking (plus 2 days of travel). If you are 30 years old and your instinct to remove yourself from the gene pool is beginning to recede, or if you go into the wilderness in search of quiet natural beauty rather than solely on a quest for pain, consider completing the trek in ten or twelve days. The extraordinary beauty of Claror, Sorteny and Comapedrosa will make you long to linger. Our 7-day itinerary is described below and includes suggestions about where to spend more time.
Logistics
- Map: ANDORRA hiking map and guidebook, €11
- Download Alpify. This safety app allows you to send your exact location to rescue teams in the event of an emergency.
- You will need an inflatable mattress and a sleeping bag. The unguarded huts provide metal bunks and a table.
- You will need a small camping stove and plenty of freeze-dried meals. Since you can’t take gas for your camping stove on a plane, plan to go into Andorra la Vella in order to purchase gas.
- You will need to carry 4 liters of water and you will need a way to purify water.
- Bring a trowel and use it to dig cat holes. Practice Leave No Trace techniques. Don’t be an asshole and leave raw human waste unburied in an alpine landscape. Bring a plastic bag and pack out your toilet paper.
- You will not need a climbing harness, helmet, ropes or climbing shoes. The only exposed climb is on the last day between Comapedrosa and Aixàs, and via ferrata equipment won’t help.
Itinerary
Day 1 – Fly to Barcelona, then take a bus from the airport to Andorra la Vella. Andbus and Andorra Direct Bus both run buses from el Prat airport to Andorra la Vella. The bus stop is directly outside the arrivals area at the airport. A one-way ticket costs €35 to €55. Use the restroom in the airport before you get on the bus, and bring snacks onto the bus with you. After arrival in Andorra, buy gas for your stove in Andorra la Vella. Options for gear stores include Intersport (Avenue de Santa Coloma 110) and Viladomat Esports (Avenue Meritxell 110). There are plenty of good restaurants in Andorra la Vella, but they don’t open until 8PM. This is inconvenient because the last bus to Aixoval leaves Andorra la Vella at 9:30PM. Note that Camping Valira in Andorra la Vella is within walking distance of the downtown area, and you can take a bus to the trailhead in the morning.
Day 2 – Walk from Aixoval to Sant Julià de Lòria. There is a drinking fountain with potable water in the tiny park in Sant Julià, and there is a grocery store along the road. (If you don’t need groceries, take a taxi to Auvinyà and skip the first, uninspiring slog through Sant Julià.) Walk from Sant Julià de Lòria to Auvinyà and thence to Juberri, then turn off the paved road onto the trail towards Pic Negro. Use the restroom and fill your water bottles in the restaurant at the adventure park called Naturlandia. There are no toilets and there is no source of water at the unguarded refuge called Roca de Pimes.
Day 3 – Walk from Roca de Pimes to Claror to Perafita to Riu dels Orris. This region is breathtaking. Smart people with plenty of food would have planned three days to do this stretch. You can draw water from the creeks that flow past Claror and Riu dels Orris.
Day 4 – Hike from Riu dels Orris to l’Illa to Pla de les Pedres. L’Illa overlooks a lake, and a small creek runs past Pla de les Pedres. L’Illa is currently under construction. If you prefer pristine wilderness, I don’t recommend it. Pla de les Pedres is a little depressing with its creaking ski lifts and glaring lights that never cease to illuminate empty ski slopes. You may wish to walk into the valley just below the hut and spend the night in comfort at a bed and breakfast, especially if you are outgoing and you speak Catalan or French.
Day 5 – Hike from Pla de les Pedres past Cabana de Siscaró to guarded Refugi de Juclà. If you are looking for a wilderness experience and you have enough provisions, stay at Siscaró rather than Pla de les Pedres or claustrophobic Juclà. If you are low on provisions, you can get a hot meal at Juclà. Dinner, a bunk and breakfast cost €36.50 per person.
Day 6 – Hike from Juclà past Refugi de Cabana Sorda and Refugi Cabana de Cóms de Jan to Refugi Guardat Borda de Sorteny. Honestly, this section is too long for one day and the pass from Cóms de Jan to Sorteny is beautiful, so split this part into two days. If you have enough food you may want to skip claustrophobic guarded Juclà and stay at unguarded Cabana Sorda or Cóms de Jan. Both have water. Refugi Guardat Borda de Sorteny is a classy alpine hut with a biergarten and a convivial common room and excellent food. Dinner, bed and breakfast cost €40 per person. Unlike Juclà’s ice cold shower, the water in the shower is warm and welcome after days on the trail. You may even want to take a rest day at Sorteny.
Day 7 – Hike from Sorteny through the villages of El Serrat and Llorts. Throw away your rubbish and dispose of your recycling in the bins on the street in El Serrat. Llorts offers fountains with potable water and a restaurant. Continue past the Refugi de l’Angonella, which has a spring. Continue past Refugi de les Fonts and Refugi del Pla de l’Estany to the Refugi de Comapedrosa. Scratch that – this section is much too long. Stay overnight at one of the unguarded huts at les Fonts or Pla de l’Estany and continue up the exquisite valley of Comapedrosa when you are rested. Comapedrosa boasts a handsome and classy old alpine hut. Dinner, a bed and breakfast costs €36 per person. Consider taking a rest day in breathtaking Comapedrosa, since you can purchase cooked meals at the hut.
Day 8 – Walk from Comapedrosa to Aixàs to Aixovall. Fill up on water at Comapedrosa. There is no water available between Comapedrosa and the tiny village of Aixàs, just above the town of Aixovall. A tap on the first building to your right offers water as you enter Aixàs.
Day 9 – Take the bus from Aixovall back to the airport in Barcelona. If you have booked your bus tickets ahead, the driver will pick you up near your hotel in Aixovall. Otherwise, you will need to take a local bus to the bus depot in Andorra la Vella.
Trail journal
20th July, Aixoval to Roca de Pimes
We throw the windows of the room at Hotel Peralba wide, and the creek burbles through my dreams.
I wake before the alarm and rise to pack my rucksack. We descend to the lobby when breakfast starts at 8AM to break our fast on coffee, orange juice, strangely breadlike croissants, assorted toast and biscuits clad in plastic. If you don’t need caffeine in the morning and you’d like to get an early start, you’d do better to put a granola bar in your pocket and hit the trail rather than waiting until 8AM to eat an uninspired breakfast in Hotel Peralba. My husband, on the other hand, would happily pay the entire cost of the breakfast for a single cup of coffee, so he thinks of the strange croissants as a side dish and feels the meal was worth the wait. We step out the door of Hotel Peralba and onto the trail.
The climb up to the shoulder is steep. The climb, traverse and descent from Aixovall to Sant Julià de Lòria requires two hours. The first thing I notice about Sant Julià is the dog shit on every single step of the stairs that descend into town.
As you enter Sant Julià a café sells ice cream. In the tiny park a drinking fountain offers potable water. (In hindsight, I need not have lugged 4 liters over the shoulder from Aixovall to Sant Julià.) From the park the trail leads along the highway, past a MacDonalds that opens at noon, past a grocery store and a public toilet, then finally up a flight of concrete steps on the opposite side of the highway. The less than inspiring industrial complex of Sant Julià will be your companion all the way up to Auvinyà. If you don’t need groceries, I recommend hiring a taxi to bypass the first part of the day’s hike and take you straight to Auvinyà.
Auvinyà is charming, all grapevines and lovely stonework, whimsical cast iron dragons and feral kittens dashing through the flowers. We sit to eat lunch next to a serene old stone church built in the 1600s. We eat a chocolate bar with a spoon. Don’t bring cheese or chocolate: they melt.
From Auvinyà the path leads along the road to Juberri. A creek crosses the trail between the church in Auvinyà and Juberri; you will want to purify the water. Juberri is home to an older stone church built in the 1100s. The village is a strange combination of historic church, fields of tobacco, and summer chalets belonging to wealthy absentee owners.
The trail runs along a narrow, curving road with low visibility, and no provision is made for pedestrians. The road does not provide enough room for a truck and a car to pass in comfort in opposite directions. There is no verge, just a steel railing, a cliff face, or a rocky ditch. There are a lot of trucks. When a truck needs to pass an oncoming car, the pedestrian’s life is in danger. Andorra badly needs either to proclaim Juberri the trailhead and install a bus route or else to invest in a trail from Auvinyà through Juberri to the turnoff towards Pic Negro. Asking backpackers to share the narrow road with truck traffic is unsafe.
In Juberri the trail turns up towards Pic Negro. It is a long tough climb to the peak, but we have finally left the industrial roar of Sant Julià and the suburban streets of Juberri behind and entered a more idyllic landscape of woods and sweeping views.
You can fill your water bottles at the restaurant at the adventure park called Naturlandia. If you plan to stay at the next refuge, Roca de Pimes, you will need to bring plenty of water for cooking, washing, and breakfast. You may wish to use the restrooms at Naturlandia, too. There are no toilets and there is no source of water at Roca de Pimes.
The stone hut named Roca de Pimes is charming, with six metal bunks. You need to bring a mattress and a sleeping bag. The hut offers a table on which to place your camp stove. There is also a fire pit, but the landscape offers little in the way of firewood. If you cut branches off a living tree for firewood, I hope you grow old and fat and never set foot in the wilderness again. Don’t be an asshole.
We have only seen one other backpacker all day, and he also plans to sleep at Roca de Pimes. Despite the low visible traffic, the meadow around Roca de Pimes is ripe with human waste. Andorra must site composting pit toilets at its unmanned huts, because this level of fecal contamination clearly affects the water supply to the whole principality. Apparently backpackers who follow this trail are not equipped with a trowel, and either don’t know how or else can’t be bothered to bury their waste. A large rubbish bin stands directly behind the hut, but toilet paper is nonetheless scattered across the meadow. A pit toilet is essential in order to lessen the impact on this fragile landscape.
The tinkling of cowbells is melodic in the night; the snoring of Robert from Barcelona less so. Bring earplugs. I am tempted to sleep outside the hut, but the rain has dampened the meadow grasses.
21st July, Roca de Pimes to Claror to Riu dels Orris
I am only very slightly pregnant, but my sense of taste and scent have become viciously acute. I don’t want to drink to drink the water from our camelbaks, which tastes like plastic. I persuade my poor beleaguered husband to pack his rucksack and hike up the trail to the creek with me before breakfast. You’ll be wanting broccoli ice cream next, he grumbles. The valley is inhabited by a herd of cattle, and the creek is a prime candidate for giardia. I am torn between the nauseating taste of plastic from the camelbak and the very real possibility of waterborne disease. I opt for giardia, and we irradiate water from the creek to reconstitute powdered milk and boil water for tea.
The hike from Roca de Pimes to Claror to Riu dels Orris is spectacular. The trail starts off up a windswept alpine ridge inhabited by marmots and small herds of horses. The marmots are huge. We startle them again and again and listen with delight to their chirping alarm calls.
The trail descends again to the valley of Claror, blessed by a creek where you can refill your water bottles. Claror is clearly a candidate for a composting pit toilet. Piles of toilet paper and raw human waste line the banks of the clear chilly little creek that chatters through the breathtaking alpine valley. No vegetation or topsoil prevents the raw sewage from running straight into the water supply for the Principality of Andorra.
Past Refugi de Claror the trail ascends to a lovely tiny lake. I watch a host of tiny fish feeding in the clear lake. If I had been clever enough to plan one night at Claror and the next night at the nearby hut Refugi de Perafita – and clever enough to bring adequate food – I would spend all day next to the lake, roll out my mat, take a nap, read a book.
From Perafita we ascend a saddle inhabited by old stone walls, a herd of cattle, and two palomino horses, then descend into the valley at Riu dels Orris with an abandoned vaulted stone dwelling and rock walls that once penned livestock. The montane forest resembles my beloved Sierra Nevada.
My husband and I are the only people staying at Riu dels Orris. The creek babbles happily outside the hut. We filter water from the creek and bathe and reconstitute chicken stew for dinner. Previous tenants have decided it is a good idea to build a campfire right up against the wall of the hut, which has wooden roof beams.
The sign which advises “it is highly recommended to bury your waste” has been ignored, as we have learned to expect. I am tempted to make a sign that shouts BURY YOUR SHIT AND PACK OUT YOUR FUCKING TOILET PAPER.
Riu dels Orris is a critical location. The valley walls are so steeply sloped and so rocky that even hikers are equipped with a trowel and educated in Leave No Trace techniques cannot defecate far enough away from the creek to avoid contaminating the water. Riu dels Orris is thus an urgent candidate for a composting pit toilet.
22nd July, Riu dels Orris to Pla de les Pedres
Riu dels Orris is idyllic, and the sound of the creek rushes through my dreams. Heavy rain means I am reluctant to leave Riu dels Orris in the morning. On the way up to L’Illa the rain turns to hail. Hit by hail twice in two weeks, my husband recalls happily. He is living the high life.
On the trail fifteen teenage boys pass me going in the other direction. I collect two buenos dias’, two hola’s, three bonjours, and a thank you. My husband claims the gentlemen in question are French boyscouts.
The trail from Riu dels Orris to Refugi de l’Illa passes two pretty tarns and an abandoned stone shepherd’s bothy. L’Illa is under construction; it is a messy, chaotic building site inhabited last night by twenty children and their adult guardians and probably also by the French boyscouts. I am very glad we decided to skip it.
From l’Illa upwards we pass a lake with a dam. Another pretty tarn waits just before the trail starts the steep climb to the top of the ridge. The ridge is beautiful, rich with wildflowers and with views. We stop to eat lunch at the top and watch the clouds roil over the next ridge.
The descent from the ridge is steep and a little treacherous, then the trail flattens out into a breathtaking valley of lakes and creeks. This is a place you will want to linger. However, a new storm is rolling in and we must move on. We fill our water bottles at the last lake and trudge under ski lifts and past snow machines to the hut Pla de les Pedres. Lightning strikes a peak above us, and we are far too exposed on the treeless shoulder. I am grateful when we descend below the treeline.
A herd of mares with leggy foals at heel grazes below the ski lift, which boasts a yurt bearing a sign for Tex Mex. I wake the lone inhabitant of the hut when I enter, and apologize. I am dripping wet. I may as well never have donned my gore-tex rain gear. I huddle in my sleeping bag to eat reconstituted stew. My rain gear is wet, my thinsulate jacket is wet, my trousers are wet, my hiking boots are soaked through. I sit in my thermal base layer to eat, wrapped in my sleeping bag. We drape clothing over the medical kit on the wall, over the doorways, the windows, over the broom and the shovel propped in the corner. There is a creek near the hut: in hindsight we didn’t need to collect water from the lake.
Lightning flashes shockingly bright near us. This landscape is marred by ski lifts lit all night and hotels that reach for the sky, the earth trampled to mud by the cattle. The moaning of the bull directly outside the door blends eerily into the snoring of our companion in the hut. I imagine the ski resort resents the very existence of the hut.
I wake in the night and tug the creaking door of the hut open. The ski lifts are illuminated, giving the darkness an eerie orange glow. When I return to the hut I turn my headlamp on, because the dark miasma inside the hut is so intense. A host of gigantic spiders adorn the walls. I check to make sure they are not poisonous and then successfully pretend not to see the one on the wall by my head as I slide back into the sleeping bag.
23rd July, Pla de les Pedres to Juclá
I wake reluctantly when the stranger’s alarm rings. We break our fast and stow our wet gear in our packs. My wool socks are almost dry, the acrylic gloves still dripping. I complain that the cows crowd around the hut, making it difficult for me to pee. Cows are harmless, says my husband encouragingly. I walk to the fence and squat, suspiciously eying a gigantic muscled white creature with sleepy eyes. Then my own eyes pop open – he’s got massive, dangling balls! I scurry back to the hut holding my sagging trousers with one hand and complain to my husband there are bulls EVERYWHERE.
I hear hooves on the verandah of the hut and peer out the door to see a musclebound brown bull six inches outside the door. I didn’t think cattle could climb stairs. I shut the door gently but firmly, hoping it won’t make enough noise to annoy him. When we exit the hut a few minutes later my husband refuses to believe the bull walked up the steps onto the verandah – he says my story is a load of bull. I point to clear tracks left across the flagstones, and he concedes the point.
We descend from Pla de les Pedres past the ski lifts into the valley, across a bridge over the creek, past a lovely little campsite with trampled grass in the shape of a tent on the banks of a second creek, then past a farmhouse with outbuildings of stone. We follow the creek upwards as it tumbles down the long slope to the ridge. Above the treeline the path disappears and we clamber upwards over tussocky grass and bog. This looks like Scotland, my husband says as rain and fog swirl about us. We clamber up the high moors, past rough shepherds’ bothies built of stone, over the top to the ridge and down to a charming triangular lake and a chilly lunch. The water in the lake is crystal clear, but shallow shores shade deeply into turquoise and then black depths. I half expect Nessie to peer out at me.
After a quick lunch we climb down the creek that flows from the lake, through a lovely river valley with an unmanned hut named Refugi Cabana de Siscaró where I wish we could linger. Andorra must install composting toilets here, for the water table is level with the footpath.
Finally we labor up over the shoulder, clambering a little over rocky slides to the manned hut Refugi de Juclà where I can hear the generator roaring. The common room is large and cheerful, and I am grateful that the stove is burning. The rain has dripped down all day, and twenty pairs of boots are arranged around the stove in concentric circles. The children and dogs who live in the hut run about conversing with climbers. A whole row of composting toilets makes my inner engineer happy.
Dinner is soup, white bread, rice, and beef stew, washed down with pitchers of red wine. I grumpily refrain from drinking the wine, and my husband steps up to finish the flask. I have been fantasizing about green salad for three days.
The showers at Juclà are cold, but I wash my socks and then my hair in warm water from the tap in the bathroom. I wash all of my socks and hang them to dry, which is a mistake since they do not overnight in the airless and overcrowded dormitory room. I carry a dry bag full of wet socks for the next four days, hanging one pair at a time from my pack to dry as we walk.
The windowless rooms at Refugi de Juclà are dark and claustrophobic, the bunks stacked three beds high. The beds have mattresses, pillows, and blankets. I envy the boys who stopped by for dinner and then left to build a camp of dubious legality on the shores of the lake. I sleep restlessly despite earplugs, wakeful and hungry in the night.
24th July, Juclà to Refugi de Sorteny
Breakfast is leftover white bread from the night before, toasted, with butter and jam. I am pregnant and famished, and the ration of bread is meager. My husband generously donates his slice of bread, though he claims both cups of coffee and both glasses of sugared fruit-flavored liquid that poses as fruit juice.
The innkeeper at Juclà kindly points the way to the saddle as we depart, past the meteorological station and then right, his collie at his heels. We clamber up and over the saddle, slide down a short rocky descent to a creek named Riu de Manegor where horses graze, past a forested outlook where people are breaking camp. We slog up a long gentle slope across the shoulder of Monjol de Cabana Sorda to the reservoir where a herd of horses crowds onto a knoll outside Refugi de Cabana Sorda, licking salt.
From the lake the ascent to the knoll is steep, followed by a steep descent that flattens out as we approach Refugi Cabana de Cóms de Jan and its pretty little waterfall. A parking lot at the base of the hill allows easy access to day trippers, and the hut is consequently well stocked with candles in wine bottles and abandoned bottles of whiskey, an entire head of garlic and a bag of salt and a packet of tomatoes. I take a tomato in each hand and consume them like apples as I walk.
The section from the Refugi Cabana de Cóms de Jan to the Refugi Guardat Borda de Sorteny is pretty, so stay overnight at Refugi de Cabana Sorda or Refugi Cabana de Cóms de Jan and tackle this section in the morning when you are refreshed.
A long slow climb leads up to the two little lakes named Estanys de Ransol, followed by a steep ascent to the pass named Collada dels Meners. There are clearly two campsites by the lakes. We scramble past a stone shelter partially dug out of the rock, and past old mine tailings. On descent we pass a roofless rock shelter marked on the map as Cabana dels Meners that might save a life in a blizzard but certainly would not be comfortable. The path to Borda de Sorteny parallels the creek named Riu de la Cebollera through fields of wildly beautiful iris and across burbling feeder creeks.
Refugi Guardat Borda de Sorteny is classy, a pretty stone hut with a biergarten and a well-stocked bar and a convivial common room and dorm rooms with clean white linens and large windows. Unlike Juclà’s ice cold shower, the water in the shower is lukewarm, so even I consent to perform my ablutions.
The woman who is the driving force behind the elegance and quality of Refugi de Sorteny speaks fluent English. She serves dinner family style, and from the sheer necessity of passing the wine we fall to talking happily with our fellow guests, a couple from Belgium who are walking the Pyrenean Haute Route and a family from Flanders with a beleaguered son-in-law from Friesia in tow. The Flemish family is delighted to share information about Triglav National Park in Slovenia, which will come in handy later this summer. We stay up too late talking with the Flemings and the Belgians, and then sleep deeply and sweetly until the alarm rings.
The food at Refugi de Sorteny includes a salad at dinner and fresh fruit at breakfast. The selection of fare at breakfast is the best I have ever seen in Catalunya, with toast and pastries and biscuits and slices of salami and plentiful butter and jam and several different hot drinks. I advise staying for two days at Refugi de Sorteny to take a rest day and hike locally and admire the luxurious wetland flowers and stock up on calories.
25th July, Refugi de Sorteny to Refugi de Comapedrosa
We breakfast with the Flemings and the Belgians and then set out. Fifteen minutes later I am kicking myself mentally for being too stupid to snag the digestive biscuits, though I did manage to eat three servings of fresh fruit. We descend past a little botanic garden and down through the handsome village of El Serrat, which provides rubbish and recycle bins on the street corner. Throw your trash away here. The bus only comes three times a day, so we walk from El Serrat to Llorts. Llorts hosts fountains providing potable water as well as a fleet of stray cats, a handsome church, and a restaurant. We do not pass a grocery store.
It is a long slow slog up from Llorts through a pine forest and over the lip to the Refugi de l’Angonella, which sits above a marsh but boasts a clean, sweet spring. I recommend staying at l’Angonella and exploring the handsome lake in the cirque above. We continue upwards to Clots de l’Estany de Més Avall, where we lunch with the Belgians on the shores of the lake and watch a herd of horses. The herd stallion comes over in search of salt, and I shoo him away when he threatens to snatch a drying t-shirt off a tussock of grass. He is blonde, with Big Hair – a palomino – and a beautiful gruella mare follows him doggedly.
We ascend to the saddle and then traverse the ridge to the Pic del Clot del Cavall where birds of prey soar on thermals high above. From here the route finding becomes tricky, and we stagger across tussocky hillsides in search of trails that do not exist. I recommend staying at the Refugi de les Fonts or the Refugi del Pla de l’Estany with its herd of horses so you can tackle the climb through the exquisite Comapedrosa valley while you are refreshed and ready to appreciate its stunning beauty.
A beautiful watery meadow is filled with feathery flowers I have never seen before. At the top of the next rise is a historic stone shepherd’s bothy with a perfectly round stone wall for herding sheep. The creek babbles and laughs down through the extraordinary, verdant valley. A second rare and delicate wetland adorns a valley above the hut. The creeks are full of frogs and the rocky slopes inhabited by marmots. The hut is old and handsome, as classy as any alpine hut in Switzerland or Germany or Austria, with a large congenial common room, a good supply of alcohol, airy, sunlit rooms, helpful staff, and fun-loving dogs. Hike up to Comapedrosa early in the day, while you are still energetic enough to swim in the creek and explore the surrounding landscape. If you have time, spend two nights at the hut and take a rest day in the valley. You don’t have to worry about carrying extra food, since you can buy it in the hut, and the valley is exquisite.
It is now 7PM. We have been walking for eleven hours, and I am moving through a red haze of exhaustion. Dinner at the Refugi de Comapedrosa is at 7:30 PM. My husband hikes heroically fast up the trail ahead to ask the kind staff to save a plate of food for me. I plod upwards. It takes me an hour and a half to hike the last steep mile to the hut. The staff are kind enough to save dinner for us. We eat long after the other guests, and find our bunks by braille in the night.
26th July, Refugi de Comapedrosa to Aixovall
I am exhausted, but the hormones coursing through my body from pregnancy keep me awake for long sleepless hours. I finally sleep deeply in the wee hours of the morning only to wake again as climbers rise and pack at 5AM. We break our fast on coffee and tea, white bread and jam. Today I am alert enough to wrap the digestive biscuits in a paper napkin and take them with us. We don’t have much food left for the last long hike today.
The staff at the Refugi de Comapedrosa kindly fill my thermos with hot water at no extra charge. (In Germany, they’d have charged me €4 for the hot water.) We fill every single one of our bottles with water at the tap. We are each carrying 4 liters. There will be no water supply between Comapedrosa and the tiny village of Aixàs, just above the town of Aixovall.
We play a brief game of steal-the-stick with the dog that guards the hut, wave goodbye to the staff, and set off up the trail, along the creek, and up the steep wall of the cirque, admiring a squeaking marmot as we climb. Unfortunately, we are following the wrong creek and we have climbed the wrong wall of the cirque. We discover our mistake a short distance up the wall and return along the creek to the hut, locate the correct trail – GRP not GR11 – and start off again. The three mile detour has cost us two hours during the coolest part of the day. When you leave the Comapedrosa hut, follow the red and yellow blazes for the GRP, not the red and white blazes for the GR11. The GRP and the GR11 split here.
We hike up the wall of the cirque to the saddle, Portella de Sanfonts, then descend obliquely below Pic del Port Vell. The map and the GRP blazes would send us east around Pic de Port Negre, but I don’t like the look of the scramble and we transit west of Pic de Port Negre, past a small herd of mares with foals at foot led across steep, rocky slopes by a gloriously handsome black stallion.
We descend under a gondola station where hawks circle, then down the shoulder of Alt de la Capa to a road and a turnout where camper vans are parked and an enormous hound slumbers in the shade of a tree. We walk down the road until we reach a ski resort parking lot at the foot of the gondola, then turn off the road and ascend to the waymarked GRP. A long gentle traverse threads under three ski lifts, currently transporting mountain bikes up to the Cap del Cubil. At the saddle the GRP ascends to the Pic d’Enclar. Bony de la Pica traverses the ridge, which offers breathtaking views, then finally summits Pica d’Os. About four meters of the traverse is exposed to the point that a foot placed poorly might result in a plummet. Then the GRP descends rapidly, over tussocky grass and weaving between rocks, over several passages secured with chains. The descent to the little village of Aixàs is steep enough to be grueling. A water tap awaits on the first building to your right as you enter Aixàs.
I only discovered that I was pregnant the day we left Germany for Barcelona. However, pregnancy has already flooded my body with the hormone relaxin, and over the past seventy miles the arch of my foot has collapsed and the plantar fascia is now inflamed. Tried and true hiking boots that have carried me hundreds of miles are suddenly excruciating instruments of torture. I walk more and more slowly as we descend towards Aixàs. By the time we reach the village I am crying. Having never built a baby before, I am not sure what levels of pain under what extended conditions will cause a miscarriage. We have walked seventy miles in the past week, but I cannot walk the last two miles to complete the circuit of Andorra.
I am tempted to camp in Aixàs for the night and walk the last two miles in the morning, but we have already paid for a room at a hotel in Aixovall, and I suspect the good folk of Aixàs do not want grubby backpackers camping in their churchyard.
When we reach Aixàs I lie on a solid stone bench behind one of the houses. The farmer’s mule walks up to the fence to watch curiously. This may be the most exciting thing that has happened in Aixàs all week. I can hear the chickens settling noisily into bed. Swallows swoop and dart in the dusk.
My husband rallies distant memories of the French language and asks the inhabitants of the farm house to call a taxi. The lady of the house speaks fluent French. Twenty minutes later, a taxi arrives. The driver finds it absolutely hilarious that we have walked seventy miles and I cannot walk the last two. I am deeply grateful that my husband has forgotten how to say ‘pregnant’ in French.
Hotel Barcelona is solid and classy and clean and is a steal for €55 per night. The clerk is kind to grubby demoralized backpackers. By now it is 9PM. We have missed dinner. I soak for an hour in the tub: if I am going to have a miscarriage I may as well have it in a bathtub. We sleep like stones.
In the morning we breakfast at Hotel Barcelona and take the bus from Aixovall back to Barcelona. If you book your bus tickets in advance, the bus driver will pick you up near your hotel. If you prefer to buy your bus tickets on the day of travel, you will need to go to the bus depot in Andorra la Vella. The bus drivers cannot sell tickets on the bus from Andorra to Barcelona.
tenleaguesbeyond 