It’s an illusion of age that things from the past are imagined in increased proportions; like going back to your primary school and realising how small it actually is when your memory is of a really big place. On the other hand, when it comes to mountains, it seems to be inverse proportions that remain, as my memories of Pic du Canigou (2,784m) was of a much smaller ascent than it actually turned out to be when facing it again ten years later. Admittedly, on my first encounter I was going down with just a small day bag. My recollections may also have been influenced by the guide books that all described it as an ‘easy’ ascent (although perhaps not in bad weather), and the occasional gîte/refuge guardian who may have climbed it once or twice, reassuring me it was ‘trés facile’.
I was still in two minds when I reached a crossroads and was faced with the choice of the shorter, steeper, Le Chimnée, or the longer official GR10 route. I stood there for 10 minutes debating with myself which way to go as cloud descended and it looked like rain, but just as I was about to continue ahead, Mimi and Michel, two lovely French hikers in their 70s I’d been tagging along the trail from Goulier, caught up with me and turned right. I followed, thinking something like, 'I once got down it, and Mimi and Michel are like ... 70 ... so how hard can going up be'.
We emerged above the cloud and continued up the valley towards steep, long lacets of moraine and rocky passage. Leaving Mimi and Michel trailing, 1000m dissolved into a couple of hours and I was at the base of 200ft of near vertical rock face.
We emerged above the cloud and continued up the valley towards steep, long lacets of moraine and rocky passage. Leaving Mimi and Michel trailing, 1000m dissolved into a couple of hours and I was at the base of 200ft of near vertical rock face.
In hindsight, I should have relied on Google rather than my memory as Le Chimnée is in fact a Grade 2 scramble, defined by the British Mountaineering Council as a point where the line between scrambling and rock climbing becomes ‘blurred, and the use of protection becomes more advisable’. Grade 2 scrambles usually include sections where a rope is a good idea if you’re not feeling too confident. I had no rope, and my confidence had ebbed away with age, particularly following the Italian misadventure. The foul vegetarian dinner that I’d paid a supplement of €3 for the night before had already violently exited and my stomach was gurgling. My period started. I needed to pee. I was carrying a full pack that restricted movement. But faced with no choice, I was going up.
It helped that it was a weekend and there were numerous agile runners (yes, people run up and over Pic du Canigou for fun), and other hikers clambering around me to provide encouragement. So it was little ledge to little ledge, tiny foothold to tiny handhold, metre by metre apart, steeper and steeper, for I do not know how long (time, like memories of height, was getting out of proportion), until the last three metres of straight up.
Knackered and at the very edge of my comfort zone, I perched on a jutting rock, letting some runners descend, before the last narrow passage to the top where a group of Catalans waited for me to clear the chute and generally cheer me on. One last haul and I was by the cross marking the point that I recalled from years ago, bearing the flags and hopes of Catalans that their country will one day be independent of Spain.
A definitive edge remained in focus but beyond that clouds rose and fell, along with the chatter of day trippers. The sun and blue sky, the outlines of valleys and crests, appeared and vanished. A step further, the abyss. I could see the sea again knowing it was only five days until I would put my toes in it.
Slow and steady, first Michel and then Mimi, half my size with twice my pack making me feel like a complete sook, appeared over the threshold and joined me for sandwiches. Quietness descended, with a slightly disturbing thought murmuring in the back reaches of my mind: ‘how the feck did I get down it the first time!'
A definitive edge remained in focus but beyond that clouds rose and fell, along with the chatter of day trippers. The sun and blue sky, the outlines of valleys and crests, appeared and vanished. A step further, the abyss. I could see the sea again knowing it was only five days until I would put my toes in it.
Slow and steady, first Michel and then Mimi, half my size with twice my pack making me feel like a complete sook, appeared over the threshold and joined me for sandwiches. Quietness descended, with a slightly disturbing thought murmuring in the back reaches of my mind: ‘how the feck did I get down it the first time!'
