This is 21 year old Nick for those of you who haven't met me yet.
Estany Negre with Port de Baiau (2,756m) in the distance.
Andorra la Vella.The city of 22,000 people and 1,000 stores. Super random; apparently a tax haven of sorts? Not fully clear how that all works but the Wikipedia page tells us that 80% of GDP is derived from tourism. For Mike and I, logistics worked beautifully up in Andorra…maybe that's typical in countries whose total area amounts to 468 km2.
Friday morning: a $2.75euro bus ride from the city took us straight to Arinsal, a small mountain town at the foot of the ski resort, 'Pal Arinsal' owned by Vallnord, and the Coma Pedrosa natural park beyond the resort. A bit cold to start off, but a real bluebird day! Maps weren’t great but, again, this is not a huge country, and thus the park wasn't too vast. Found the access to the park after a small walk up a ski trail. We followed the GR 11, a trail that runs through much of the park, and it treated us just fine. Met a Spanish guy thru-hiking it, from the Basque country west to east through the Pyrenees all the way to Cadaqués (a town north of Barcelona on the Mediterranean), who was on his 29th day (out of 42 or so he figured)! Peaked a mountain called Port de Baiau (2,756meters) on the Spanish border. Gettin’ steep up there boss! A solid day hike and we were back on the bus heading for Andorra la Vella by 5pm.
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Hollah!
Not too cloudy.
Westward view of Spanish Pyrenees (maybe a bit of France also).
Beautiful place, and no fellow hikers!
I managed to leave my water bottle on that bus, and was waiting for the ‘L5 line’ to roll back through town in hopes of recollecting it at about 6:30, that’s when I saw Micaela walking down the street. Kind of nice to run into old friends on the streets of Andorra. Who would’ve guessed? Originally, Mike and I had pictured Saturday being relaxed because of Micaela being there and it being my birthday night (kind of) on Friday (maybe we’d want a recovery day?). However, that didn’t really happen, Micaela insisted on wanting to ‘do something epic tomorrow,’ and who were we to decline such a gung-ho mentality? I was awake at midnight, but not much longer!
Saturday (my 21st Birthday) we went back to the same Natural Park via the bus to Arinsal and intended to do a lesser version of what we’d completed the day before. After all, this was Micaela’s first ‘real hike’ in her own words…but when the opportunity to head up into the middle valley rather than the western valley of the park arrived, it was a little too appealing… at shortly after that point we realized this was another perfect bluebird day in the Pyrenees and a summit attempt was a real possibility! Hell yeah! Passed some cows, stopped, hydrated and ate when Micaela became mildly dizzy, and then made the final push to reach the summit of Pic del Pla de I’Estany (2,859m) on the French border! Solid first hike right there for Meeks. I was feeling good and made the semi-perilous trek across a 200 yard ridge of cols to the true summit. Descent was also a success, Saturday night too. Andorra la Vella isn’t the most exciting city and instead of the standard American 21st birthday experience of drinking very excessively, we found a Fresca, a franchise restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet. After a week of walking my taste buds forgot about that little thing called ‘decreasing marginal-utility;’ I think I consumed something like 3,000(+)? calories. There was heaps of laughter that slowly became more painful than enjoyable as plates of food were polished off. Great finale to a great week!
Below is a link to a decent map of the Coma Pedrosa Natural Park
dWe joked about Micaela having a High Altitude Cerebral Edema (did not happen thankfully!).
Bit steep getting up the final pitch!
View of friends and mountains from Pic del Pla de I’Estany (2,859m).
That's the section of Andorran mountains we climbed on Friday.
Peak livin' in the Pyrenees!
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