Dougal and his fundraising crew in the Ordesa Valley

 Last week Dougal and his fundraising crew came over for a challenging 4 days hiking in aid of Claire House Childrens Hospice. We had brilliant weather and tackled 4 fantastic routes.

Crossing a snowfield heading up to Pico Anayet

Our first days hiking took us to Pico Anayet – a spectacular, pointy peak of 2545m. There’s a lot more snow than normal in the Pyrenees this summer so we had to cross a few snowfields before tackling the chains and the scramble to the summit.

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On the summit of Marbore (3248m)

Fantastic Refugio Week last week with the highlight being summiting a snow covered Marbore (3248m) and looking the Cirque de Gavarnie far below.

Clear blue skies and lots of snow made for fantastic hiking. Our first two day trek in the Valle de Tena took us to the Ibones de Arriel before hiking to our home for the night - Refugio Respomuso. The second day soon had us with our crampons on and ice axes out as we headed into the superb Cirque de Piedrafita and our summit of the day – Tebbarai standing at 2916m with fantastic views in all directions.

Refugio Respomuso and the Cirque de Piedrafita - click on the photo for a larger image - thanks for the great photo David !

Crampons on for Jo-Anne

Our second trek was 3 days hiking in the Ordesa National Park amongst some of the most spectacular scenery of the Spanish Pyrenees. A steep two hour climb brought us to the Faja de Pelay - a high level path through the Ordesa Valley. The effort was well worth it as we were rewarded with birds-eye views of Ordesa and all the 3000m peaks on the French border. Staying the night at Refugio Goriz we had an early start the following morning as we climbed (and climbed…) towards the summit of Marbore. With clear blue skies the views were superb and the summit views down into the Cirque de Gavarnie were breathtaking.

Arkaitz on the way to the summit of Marbore

 The descent gave us a great chance to practice our glissading technique and it has to be said some needed more practice than others….

John showing off his glissading technique

Jo-Anne perfecting hers....

 Our final days hiking followed the length of the Anisclo Canyon, the longest in the Park. The snow melt (and sudden thunderstorm) led to more waterfalls in the canyon than I’d ever seen as follwed the length of the canyon back to Anna, the van and a very welcome cold beer!

Leaving Refugio Goriz with the Ordesa Valley below

Thanks to everyone for a great week.

We’ve one space left for the Refugio Week this September - read more details and join us for a fantastic week in the Pyrenees.

Walking in the Valle de Ordiso

The walking season is in full swing here in the Pyrenees and we’ve had a couple of great walking holidays already this June with a Lakes & Valleys and a Discover Ordesa walking holidays. We’ve had some fantastic hikes visiting high alpine pastures, abandoned villages, the Ordesa and Anisclo canyons and some superb summits.

Walking up to the Ibon de Piedrafita

Walking near Bujaruelo on our Discover Ordesa walking holiday

The flowers have been superb and we’ve seen a dozen types of orchid including a couple of rare parasitical orchids – the birds nest orchid and violet limadore. Other orchids we’ve seen are bee orchids, woodcock orchids, fly orchids, elder flowered orchids, sword leaved helleborines, early purple orchids, marsh orchids, common orchids, pyramid orchids and dark vanilla orchids (and probably a couple of others that I’ve forgotten….).

The semi-parasitical violet limadore orchid

Bird lovers have not been disapointed either with the highlight being two lammergeier which landed about 100m away from us and then were joined by a juvenile as they soared off.

Thanks to all of our guests for making June a great month and we hope to see you again in the Pyrenees.

The fort at Coll de Ladrones

Yesterday evening I went climbing at a venue called Coll de Ladrones north of Jaca near the French border. There has been a fort there since 1751 and before climbing I went for a bit of an explore.

The original fort was built to defend the pass from France and had a horseshoe design. It was finished in 1758 but was promptly abandoned due to poor construction. The second fortress was begun in 1888 but not finished until 1900. This new fortress had 5 gun emplacements hewn from the rock to guard the approaches from the north-east and north-west. A spectacular gallerty leads down to sixth emplacement which guards the road.

Moat dug out of the solid rock

I noticed the building that housed the officers quarters is in a nice, sunny, sheltered spot while the soldiers barracks that houesd 150 infantry and 50 gunners is in a cold exposed part of the fortress.

Soon after it’s completion the fort became obselete and was decomissioned in 1961. In 1990 it was sold to a private enterprise and you can visit the fort on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the summer.

Unexpectedly around the fort I found lots of flowers – meadow and livelong saxifrages, spring gentians and elder flowered orchids. Best of all were a huge number of fritillarys – a beautiful flower that’s pretty rare in the Pyrenees and I’d only seen before in the Valle de Otal. There must have been well over a hundred in the area.

A beautiful fritiallary - one of my favourite flowers

Close-up of the fritillary flower - the colour of the flowers is quite variable

Eventually I left the flowers behind and started climbing. Really nice rock – limestone of course. There are about 24 well bolted routes ranging from 4+ to 7a. Several of the routes have three pitches right up to the base of the fort although we just stuck to some single pitch routes. Handily there is a crag map with the routes and grades marked at the base of the wall. Beautiful evening and we didn’t finish climbing until almost 10.

The climbing crag at Coll de Ladrones

La Cuniacha animal park near Piedrafita welcomed 3 new Lynx cubs this spring. Apparently they were born very early and the park wardens are concerned that they won’t make it through any cold spells.

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