On Monday I finally got back out hiking in the mountains again and it felt wonderful! I went up Punta del Pacino with Ruby. It’s a special walk for me as it was the first route that Anna and I did in the Valle de Tena and the day that we realised we’d finally found where we wanted to settle and base Hike Pyrenees.

The route is a fantastic circuit of the mountain before heading up to the summit. Despite having hiked it dozens of times it’s still one of my favourite hikes in the valley – for wildflowers, butterflies and panoramic views it’s hard to beat.

After the recent rain that we’ve had, the flowers couldn’t have been better. There were literally fields of marsh and butterfly orchids and I counted 8 varieties in total. As the route is almost a complete circuit as you hike around the peak you see different flowers depending on the aspect of the slope – it leads to a fantastic variety of wildflowers. You can see from the gallery below just how many flowers are out at the moment.

We’ve actually been allowed out hiking for a couple of weeks now, but a mixture of managing homeschooling, keeping the office going, the new vegetable patch and some cold rainy weather has meant this is the first time I’ve headed out into the higher mountains.

We were due to be welcoming the Northern Rivers Bushwalkers club to the Pyrenees this week and I’d love to have been sharing this route and the wildlife with them – looking forward to seeing you next year instead guys!

It’s not too demanding a hike which was perfect as the legs are lacking a bit of fitness after lockdown!

I never bore of leading this hike, it’s one of our most popular and there’s always something interesting to show guests. We hike this route on most of our Valle de Tena based holidays such as the Valle de Tena Explorer and it’s also on our Village to Village self guided itinerary.

Looking forward to my next trip out. Hopefully this weekend I’ll get up a bit higher and see what the snows like up there.

Hope all of our readers are keeping well and you’ll be back in the mountains again soon.

One

First, you get a line diagram of the mountains you should be seeing in front of you. Sometimes I find the compass doesn’t line up properly and you have to drag the horizon around a bit on the screen. Top tip: taking your phone out of the case helps accuracy – especially if the case has a magnetic clip like mine!

Two

Press the little camera icon in the top left and you get the line drawing now overlayed over the photo of the actual mountains. You can drag the skyline around a bit to get it to match more exactly if it’s a bit off. Zoom in to get more peak names and detail, getting more sky in the picture also seems to increase the number of peak names displayed. Click the shutter button on the right when it’s lined up fairly accurately.