Day 56: Py to the Refuge des Cortalets

Setting off under blue skies and an autumnal wonderland, speeding up excellent hillpaths through a forest where a tiny leat ran parallel to the path, reaching a closed refuge and heading on through forest with views of mount Canigou who is already wearing his snowy winter coat at the peak, arriving at a river and meeting a lovely Polish lady who pointed out that the path crossed the river only there was no bridge or stepping stones and it was ten metres wide and quite deep so taking off our boots and wading across, the rain starting as soon as we parted ways with our new friend, turning to hail, the path getting wetter and leading us over bouldery avanlanche paths that the guide described as chaos (an apt choice of words), three isards leaping about majestically, a late lunch then absolutely storming up to one last col – our last jaunt over 2000m and thank goodness for that because it actually started snowing –, heading down past a lake to the refuge where we were "welcomed" by being put in the outhouse rather than the main bit with all the other hikers (really unsure why-official reason is because we are cooking our own food. Questionable reasoning) but actually it's better in here (albeit a bit reminiscent of Father Ted) because we have our own fire place and it is blazing. Only a few crappy photos for this update because my phone has decided to corrupt almost all the ones i took today (so many epic pics of snowy peaks, one of us taken together by the nice Polish woman and so many glorious autumn leaves. and such a cute tiny baby cow. booo hiss. Please imagine gloriousness and hope the phone gods fix things...)

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Glorious snowy Canigou

We stayed in the Refuge de Cortalets which was the worst experience of hospitality that we had along the GR10 - the gardien was downright rude, unprofessional and irresponsible. If you can avoid staying there, then I’d really advise it. 

The gardien claimed that we had to stay in the outhouse/prison because we wanted to cook with a gas cooker. This did not make sense. We could have cooked in the outhouse and stayed in the main building with everybody else. I don’t know about you, but for me the word “refuge” suggests a welcoming, friendly shelter from the elements, not a freezing cold outhouse, a rude “welcome” and basically being treated like a second-class citizen just because you’re not one of the gardien’s mates.

Anyway, all’s well that ends well… we lit a huge fire, feasted, eventually got some sleep huddled up in the weird dank building and the next day we were on our way. I hope never to return to refuge "prison"!
 

Refuge prison

The vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 9h21
Peak: 2269m
Total ascent: 1852m
Total descent: 730m

Day 48: Inclès to la Vallée du Montiguillou

Waking up tired after a cold, wet and windy night, heading uphill to amazing views of Andorra, all yellow golds, reds and pine forests and epic mountain scenery, two hoppy frogs and then at long last seeing some marmots again, hopping over sunny rocks, yipping and showing us the way to the Refuge de Juclar, discovering the revelation that is omelette sandwiches (sooo tasty!), walking past the glistening Étanys de Juclar where the rocks had lines of quartz glistening through them and heading up to two cols which we passed over admiring a last glimpse of beautiful Andorra before descending back into France on the GR Transfrontalier where the path turned into piles of boulders that we spent the next 4+ hours clambering over, swearing and getting scraped, there were more beautiful étangs with a grey and red bird fluttering about like a treecreeper only on rocks, before we turned into the horrendous valley of Montiguillou where the boulders became bigger and even less enjoyable (!), finally reaching a flat space overlooking a lake and pitching the tent, watching the moonlight make the rockface glow as we ate dinner.

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Adorable Andorran marmot

Andorra is so beautiful

Vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 8h51
Peak: 2521m
Total ascent: 784m
Total descent: 895m