It’s said mountains are a school of life.
In the mountains we learn to live at a different pace and under new, eternal rules imposed by this immense Nature that surrounds and accompanies us. These days we have learned that those thick and imposing clouds with a gray and dark base can transform a clear and bright day into a spectacle of rain and hail.
These first days have put us in our place and remind us that, for mountain climbing, the rucksack must carry what is necessary, nothing more, nothing less, and anything left over is a very heavy load. We learn this by gritting our teeth to climb the Perafita pass or tackling the climb to the Comapedrosa Refuge. In the mountains you need to be complete but simple.
We have learned to be light and agile. And the fact is that we have crossed so many rivers, streams and creeks that we already know how to choose the best rocks, logs and pieces of grass to cross without getting wet. We are agile and resilient, because when we don’t get it right and get our boots and socks wet, we keep going without regret because we know it’s not that serious and we won’t let that stop us. Now we are so agile that we know how to descend the scree of Portella de Baiau, and even dodge that rock that escapes down the mountain.
These long days of rocks, ponds, grassy meadows, strenuous climbs and painful descents… have taught us that time is relative. What is planned is not always fulfilled, that sign ‘Escaldes in 2 hours’ tells a flexible truth, nor does the appetite always arrive at the same time. That they give us dinner at the shelter at 7pm no longer seems too early, nor does walking 8 hours in one day seem crazy to us. That day at Estany de Sotllo climbing the Baborte (2,934m) stretched the time on our clock and also our endurance. And it is that we have learned to be flexible with the weather in the sky and with the time marked by our clock.
And this, all this, we have learned because we have experienced it!