Thursday, June 17, 2010

Canillo, Andorra

23/05/2010
Apart from shopping and skiing, the other main pursuit in Andorra is hiking so we decided to go for a bit of a walk up to Lake Juclar, which is the largest lake in Andorra.
The start of the walk is 3km off the main road backtracking a bit from Canillo. Skippy decided that the 3km was a bit too steep, winding and one lane-y so we parked him and walked instead. This added 6km on the round trip and was felt keenly on the way back. The start of the walk proper was up a gravelly road/stream, the road being a natural conduit for the snow melt of the mountains. After a short while we started encountering patches of snow on the path and then the path became more of goat track winding up between boulders. There were a few other hikers about but most of those had sensibly brought along hiking poles. Eventually we got a point where the path stopped and we encountered a long steep slope coverd in snow. Had to make decision whether to go on or not as we were not really kitted out for climbing up snow covered mountains. Eventually, common sense was conquered and we forged on. It was actually pretty scary. It's a bit hard to judge, but we think the slope was around 35-40%, which doesn't sound much until you're halfway up and look back to see the ground just fall away sharply. This is when you start thinking, 'Gee, if I lost my balance here and fell over, I'd go swiftly screaming down the hill until crashing into those pointy rocks at the bottom. And that would hurt. A lot.' Solution was to not look back.
On the plus side, the snow was quite soft so it was easy to dig in footholds. On the negative side, the snow was quite soft so every so often you'd sink up past your knees, making tough going. On top of that, little streams were undercutting the snow at various points so there was always a risk of breaking through it and twisting an ankle on a crevice in the rocks below.
Eventually, we made it up to the lake, which was still frozen over. Even though we were surrounded by snow covered mountains and sitting next to a frozen lake, it was still hot and good to have rest. The rest of hike was uneventful, apart from when I thought I heard a bear roaring close by (scary) and when Catherine dislodged a reasonable sized little boulder which then fell on and trapped her foot (quick thinking + strong husband + sturdy boot = no damage).
No trouble getting to sleep tonight.

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