16-17.11.2019

Introduction

Aneto rises above all others in the Pyrenees, reaching a height of 3404 m. That's not very high in the context of mountaineering, but attempting this peak alone in winter already seems like an experience. That's exactly what I planned.

The peak of Aneto in summer; in winter it is covered in snow. [Image borrowed from the Internet] — The peak of Aneto in summer; in winter it is covered in snow. [Image borrowed] from the internet]

Why Aneto and why in winter?

The answer is simple - in fact, the main purpose of my trip was a scientific conference in Barcelona, and since it had been quite some time since the summer peaks, my hands were already shaking, sweat bubbles appeared on my forehead, and other withdrawal symptoms appeared. Of course, I had to find a way to feed this soul parasite. I happened to remember that my friend Marko was going off-season somewhere around there on a summit hunt - Anetol. As a result of some good detective work, it became clear that the highest peak in the Pyrenees is quite suitable for a weekend conquest: essentially doable in 2 days (ca. 15 km summit day); still low enough that it can be done without acclimatization; and only a 4-hour drive from Barcelona. Intelligence data collected, vague instructions and trail descriptions written down, a car was already rented from the airport (the price of which was promised in the online booking naturally doubled when you received the keys) and a night was booked in the La Renclusa hut. There was no turning back. It is also worth mentioning that although there are queues in front of the summit in summer, information about winter conditions was rather scarce. Nevertheless, it seemed doable, if only the weather would be better - in the mountains this is often the most decisive factor... and well, let's be honest, a summer conquest would be too easy!

Alone? Crazy?

If so, deliberate madness. Of course, solo mountaineering is a much more dangerous undertaking than going with a partner or group, because if you get into trouble, in the worst case, you have to somehow get yourself to help. You might think that in the smart age, you'd just be happy to get a helicopter when your legs can't carry you anymore. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, you don't pay that much for the spread between the mountains. Okay, I'm willing to take that risk. Are there any more dangers? Yes, there are. To get to Aneto, you also need to cross a glacier, and a glacier means crevasses, or ice crevasses. Being in a rope (connection) with a partner would help mitigate this risk, but I did some research and it seemed that there are few - if any - crevasses and they are not large. Crossing a real glacier with crevasses alone is more like a death wish, yep.

But talking to a friend is much more fun, right? It is, but there is definitely something magical about striving forward completely on your own and being in total solitude with your own thoughts. I highly recommend trying it, maybe you'll discover something new about yourself.

Very organized movement on the streets of Benasque

Let the experience begin.

The flight landed around 19:00 PM, so I decided to drive for 2 hours and make a stopover in a city called Lleida. I packed up nicely, loaded myself up with McDonalds calories (I don't recommend it, the local burger was just awful) and bought myself a new Simond Alpinism 33 backpack from the Decathlon sports store (a great backpack for 55€), which I immediately put to use. You can't find Decathlon and its mountaineering subsidiary Simond in Estonia, but if you find yourself abroad, I recommend stopping by, because the price/quality ratio is very good. About 2 hours of road fun and I was in the mountain village of Benasque. If the winter is harsh, you can't get there by car, which essentially puts an end to 1 day of hiking. Fortunately, God (still) had mercy and I was able to squeeze closer to the mountain. I then reached the parking lot along the mountain roads about 2 km before the next mountain village, La Benasque. I stuck my head out of the car and saw that all the other people were equipped with skis or snowshoes. I had decided earlier that I would probably be able to get some snowshoes (or rent them locally). So I decided to gather some information from the locals and went to talk to the park rangers. The park rangers were squatting in their booth and chatting among themselves when I kicked open the door and demanded the latest weather and trail information. In broken English, they managed to convey to me that the worst weather of the century was coming, the avalanche danger was real, going alone was idiotic and without snowshoes I would drown in snow when I left the parking lot. Well, clear. Promising. I thanked the nice ladies for their words of warning and asked the parking lot residents where their snowshoes and skis came from - “There is a rental place in Benasque” came the answer.

Waiting for the Spanish siesta in the Yaris — Spanish people with Yaris *nap* waiting for you

I tuned up my Toyota Yaris with summer tires again and drifted along the mountain roads for about 30 minutes back to Benasque. I got there around 12:00. I looked around and not a single soul was moving, thoughts went through my head that in the meantime there was zombie apocalypse happened. Well, luckily not - the Spaniards were just digesting lunch. Okay, not bad, right? I soon learned that the Spaniards have a very slow digestion, so the first shops opened at 17:00 PM. I ran through a couple of rental places until I finally got my cheap snowshoes, waving my hands in Spanish. The sun was already starting to set and I had lost a lot of valuable time, but whatever. I drifted back up the hill to the accompaniment of the “Tussisöyjate” podcast.

On the hiking trail in the dark

With my gear on and my pockets stuffed with the necessary things, I started on the trail. Along with the darkness, a light snowfall came, as the park rangers had promised. It didn't bother me, because at least I could move. Besides, there was a pretty enchanting winter wonderland all around. I set a pretty good pace on the vest, because dinner was only allowed at the hut until 8 o'clock and I wasn't going to miss it. Soon, the snowshoes started to justify themselves, because the snow was sticking to my knees pretty quickly. I was fine-tuning there in the dark solitude according to the Wikiloc map app and everything was going well... until the GPS signal disappeared and there was a fork in the road. Left or right? Oops, I should have at least checked the compass direction first, I forgot about that now. I thought to myself that it wouldn't be bad to last a few days in the forest with warm clothes in my bag and water and food. I tossed a metaphorical coin and went right. I took at least 10 steps, looked over the straw and through the snowfall at the trail of footprints going in the other direction, and, obeying a strange gut feeling (no, it wasn't gas), I went back and took a completely different path. A good gut feeling, it turned out to be right. At the first opportunity, I also set the direction of movement on the compass and thus mitigated the risk of further loss. At one point, I discovered that the ground had changed. Indeed, with poor visibility and walking on autopilot, I didn't even notice that I was crossing a small frozen lake. My steps immediately became more cautious and it wasn't long before one of my snowshoe-equipped feet pierced the somewhat fragile ice and splashed into the water. "Jess," I thought and thanked my waterproof hiking boots. I crossed the lake on a penguin walk and headed back to the increasingly hilly forest trail.

I would venture to say that about an hour later I got my first confirmation that I was on the right track when I noticed the first signpost in the distance. “1 km and 45 min to La Renclusa hut” was written there in the local language, if memory serves. That suited me. The rest was pretty uneventful, with a few heart-pounding slips on a steeper slope and increasing snowfall, but after an hour I reached the hut at 2140 m. There I was greeted by 2 barking dogs. I bravely made friends and set off into the surprisingly large hut. As I struggled with my frozen bootlaces, an abnormally cheerful middle-aged man appeared at the door, gently touching my biceps with his hand and apparently asking who I was and where I was from. I waved in Spanish to say that I had a reservation here for the night. He then directed me to the next local, with whom I was fortunately able to switch to English. It was 21:00 PM, but as an exception, they still allowed me to eat. The staff were very, very welcoming and cheerful, I sincerely praise the service. They even allowed me 5 minutes of hot water and, since there were few people, I even got a private room full of bunk beds. The euphoria of being able to wash soon subsided, because it turned out that the towel had not found its way into my 33-liter backpack… No problem, I marched into the dining room with my proud oiled hair, where a #fitlife salad, noodle noodle soup, a few slices of bread and a well-deserved beer awaited. Everything was very much in place.

Lazy start to the summit day

I had a pretty late start to the day for two reasons: to sleep in and not to look for the trail in the dark. I woke up at 5:00 and after brushing my teeth I headed to the dining room, hoping to take the same nice meal with me on the trail as I had had in the evening. I was sorely mistaken. I looked at the cookies and muffins on the table, the instant coffee ingredients, and turned my sleepy head 8 degrees at least 360 times, wondering where this breakfast was? It was breakfast. I stuffed as many dry cookies as I could chew into my face and prepared for the start of the summit day. Besides me, there was another group of about 10 people there - the local alpine club. To my chagrin, they weren't going to Aneto, but to one of the other peaks. I was the only one going to Aneto that day. I thanked the staff for their hospitality and stepped out of the hut in the slowly receding twilight, where I was greeted by a blanket of snow that had fallen during the night. At least the weather seemed good. I looked at the map I got from Benasque several times, tied my “shoes” under my feet and headed in the footsteps of the Alpine Club. The first 100 meters were very nice to walk on their trail, but this luxury was short-lived. As I stepped off the trail, I sank into the mud up to my knees, “this is going to be great,” I muttered to myself.

Best snowshoes 10/10 would def rent again

There was no trail ahead and I soon realized that under the thick layer of snow there was a proper obstacle course consisting of large rocks, which made it much more difficult to move. It was not easy to translate the previously researched and drilled trail images into reality, so I just took an approximate direction of movement and hoped that it would lead to the right place. The first intermediate goal was to find a passage through the towering wall of the mountain range on the left - there were supposed to be two places where you could get through: Portillion Inferior and Pertillion Superior. However, the going was difficult and slow, even with snowshoes you sank knee-deep in snow and under the fresh thick layer of snow there was a slippery icy slope (which, in addition to being uncomfortable, is also a formula for avalanches). Fortunately, I managed to avoid avalanche-prone areas on the trail quite successfully. I packed and packed… and packed. In the meantime, I found myself facing a not-so-steep hill - at best, a 45-degree slope and a 3-meter climb. I think it took me a good 15 minutes to get up there, because one step forward (on all fours) was like sliding 10 steps back to the start. Finally, I hit a large rock under the snow, which I had to climb up. I cracked climb. The main issue was of course the rented snowshoes, which were not at all cooperative. Every 10 minutes one of them decided to go its own way and reattaching the frozen straps was a real Mission Impossible. Tom Cruise probably could have done better, but all sorts of fancy DIY solutions didn't make the situation much better. At one point it got so bad that I took them off. But I put them back on right away, because swimming up the mountain in the snow seemed even harder. :)

At one point I began to realize that the path I had chosen was not quite right. I knew that I had to keep more to the left, but there was a gaping (in the given conditions) impassable gorge, the end of which I had been waiting for a long time. It seemed that it would end any moment and I could cut beautifully to the left… but I didn’t want to end right away. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this event was hopeless. It was tough to make a path alone in such dirty snow and the pace was simply too slow, in addition to the wrong route of course. I considered my options: push further, potentially make a snowy emergency overnight stay, and risk a dangerous descent in the dark, or admit that this time it won't be done. Seems like an easy choice, right? It wasn't easy at all at the moment. Finally, I decided it would help; it was probably 2-3 in the morning and I had probably walked a quarter of the way. Hopeless. It didn't matter, I turned around.

… and a quick end to the summit day

The descent was of course smoother. My own path was still more or less intact, although in places it was already covered in new snow, so it was nice to walk with the help of gravity. Unfortunately, Aneto still wanted to rub salt into my soul's wound and one of them fell under the snow. camos of the squatting stone clods showed me a big innocent middle finger. I slipped/stumbled somehow wrong and fell with my kneecap directly onto the dagger-shaped end - “aiaacykablyatnahui”. The first thought was of course that great, now I have to crawl down too. Fortunately, all my bones were intact and I could continue limping. (Later I found out that in addition to the concussion, I probably also pulled some knee ligaments, because the injury healed ca (two months.) Finally I got back to the La Renclusa hut, where I patted the stomach of a seal (see picture) and rested my feet for a moment. In the twilight or darkness I got back to the car and soon I was sleeping somewhere in a good-value hostel, drying my clothes and chewing on the remaining sausage (because all the restaurants were closed). Such an adventure then. I will try my luck there again someday.

Go crazy and have fun!

Adventure locomotive Al

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