We’d like to wish all of our friends and guests a very merry Christmas from all of us here at Hike Pyrenees.
It was a busy summer for us here in the Pyrenees and for the first time post-pandemic we had a full team back, which was great. We all met for a Christmas lunch at the lovely El Montañes restaurant in Biescas yesterday – a good time was had by all.
Unfortunately, we said goodbye to Juanma this summer as he moved on to pastures new. He spent the autumn in Italy guiding cycling holidays and is currently in Finland guiding huskie sledding and snowshoeing routes in the home of Santa Claus. We wish him all the best on his new adventures. He was a great guide and such a friendly guy and will be sorely missed – I’m sure all of you who have hiked with him would agree with me.
However, we welcomed two wonderful new guides to the Hike Pyrenees team and Sara and Pablo joined our long-standing guide David, and were out hiking with groups last summer and will be with us again next summer.
For 2024, our new spring guided holiday in Beceite is filling up fast so let us know quickly if you’d like to join us. We have a full summer program of hiking holidays planned in the Valle de Tena, Ordesa, and the Picos de Europa so we hope to see many of you again next year.
We hope you all have a great Christmas and happy hiking for 2024.
Last month we had a guides trip out up to Ibon de Estanes in the Valle de Aragon. It was good to meet up with David, Sara and Pablo. The route is beautiful, starting in France, passing through beech woods and then heading up a ledge path into Spain to the lake. In winter we often do this on snowshoes and if you’re brave you can hike right over the frozen lake. We descided to try a different path down which turned out to be more of a goat track and needed a bit of scrambling in places.
It’s a brilliant place to see chamois and we spotted about twenty during the day – many really close up and we could hear their throaty warning calls. We also saw a roe deer and again coudl hear its dog like warning bark. The final wildlife treat of the day was a young fox – being more nocturnal, we don’t usually see these while out hiking.
The day ended with tapas (of course!) and a look round the newly renovated Canfranc Estacion. This historical train station was opened in 1928 as a major international station and was the second largest station in Europe at that time. The long tunnel that connects Canfranc with France is actually a spiral to reduce the steep gradient. In 1970 a runaway train destroyed a bridge on the French side, the train line was closed and the station fell into disrepair. This year the station reopened as a luxury hotel and with the help of European funding, there are plans to reopen the train line.
Interestingly, at the moment the tunnel houses the LSC (Canfranc Subterranean Laboratory) which is a major research station trying to detect dark matter particles. The tunnel is 600 metres underground which makes it perfect to cut out naturally occuring radiation which affects the sensitive detection equipment. I was lucky enough to have a tour round the laboratory a few years ago and as a science and astronomy geek I found it absolutely fascinating. In their bid to cut out all ambient radiation, the final layer of protection in their instruments is made of lead recovered from sunken Roman galleons, which, after two thousand years under the sea, is the most inert substance they can find. The laboratories latest project is to detect a sub atomic particle that is going to be fired out of CERN and detected in the Pyrenees.
The renovated station building is beautiful and they’ve created a lovely esplanade behind the hotel along with information boards about this areas fascinating history – it was used as an escape route for Jews during the war and there are legends of Nazi gold being buried there. The renovations have created a whole new look for the village which previously was dominated by the delapidated and boarded up station building.
Thanks to David, Sara and Pablo for a great day out! Here’s looking forward to many more in 2024.
2024 Guided holiday dates
7 – 14 April: Beceite – New for 2024
18 – 25 May: Cerdanya – New for 2024 – full!
9 – 16 June: Valle de Tena Explorer
16 – 23 June: Discover Ordesa
22 – 29 June: Picos de Europa – full!
30 June – 7 July: Valle de Tena Explorer
7 – 14 July: Refugio Week
14 – 21 July: Discover Ordesa
21 – 28 July: Lakes & Valleys & Peaks & Passes
28 July – 4 August: Valle de Tena Explorer
1 – 8 Sep: Lakes & Valleys & Peaks & Passes
7 – 14 Sep: Picos de Europa
15 – 22 Sep: Discover Ordesa
22 – 29 Sep: Valle de Tena Explorer
Self guided holidays available all summer
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