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Day 7: To Parking

Each day's route is shown by a red track with yellow highlight.  On "loop" days, our return trip is a blue track with yellow highlight. Starting and ending Refugios are marked in yellow, while lunch spots are marked by a blue circle (since map areas overlap, several may be shown). « Previous  |  Route Index |   Next »

` Route: Refugi de Colomers to Parking to Narbonne, France Slog rating  [1="Easy" to 10="Argh!"]: 5 (mostly on account of "The Great Lie") Net climb: -650m Total time (including stops): 4 hours Our final day began with our rallying cry "Narbonne by 5!".  We wanted to return to Narbonne by 5:00 p.m. so that we could squeeze a visit to both the laundromat and the beach into the evening. George had assured us that our hike out to our cars would be down through the valley overlooked by Refugi de Colomers.  The key word in that sentence, to which we had clung like ravenous koalas might to a leafy eucalyptus tree, is down. This, it turned out, was "The Great Lie."  What followed, therefore, became known as "The Unravelling of the Great Lie", as George informed us that he had been wrong and we would have to go up, but just a little bit.  This too was a lie. We set off -- and up.  We climbed.  And climbed.  And then, for good measure, we climbed some more.  There was much jovial complaining and ribbing of George as we ascended towards the Cohl de Ribetera.  The narrow and occasionally non-existent trail and the enthusiastic vegetation made it one of the harder gently-sloping ascents that we did. We were also stupidly dehydrated, as we kept waiting for the next stream uphill at which to replenish our supplies, until we ran out of streams. Finally we reached the top and began our final descent into the valley.  Our spirits lifted, and we broke into song (short bits of song oddly strung together and with made-up lyrics -- for example "If I had a million Euros..."). We pumped water for the last time and transitioned from the trail to a road.  The road became tree-lined, providing us with a canopied, gently-sloping conclusion to the hike.  Amazingly, Mehmet found a sandal that he had lost on the first day on the way up to Restanca -- there it was, perched atop a prominent sign by some kindly hiker. We arrived at the cars with a bittersweet feeling.  We had made it, but our little adventure was over.  We snapped a few final photos and headed off for "Narbonne by 5!". We didn't quite make it ... especially George and Anatole who were so engrossed in conversation in their car that they overshot Narbonne by 35km on the highway.  This was quite embarassing since they had overshot St. Gaudens on the way to the Pyrenees by 17km and had, that notwithstanding, mocked the other car about their pace for the return trip to Narbonne. But we did achieve our objective, ending our time together as it began:  on the beach in Narbonne.