GR10 Day27

We had a good dinner in the gite.  Courgette tart, empanada, tortilla, salad, gazpacho, chicken nuggets and wings, hummus, and homemade savoury biscuits, followed by tiramisu.  We slept well and had an early breakfast before today’s big climb.  The cloud was over the valley and we assumed we would eventually climb out of it, but it was not to be.  The day’s walk started up a very quiet, dead end road for about 7kms.  We slowly climbed towards the cloud and when we reached it we put the covers on our rucksacks.  It was extremely humid and as we were already wet, we continued without putting our waterproofs on.  At the end of the road the path continued along an old track which was well built.  At the end of it the really steep ascent started.  We cleared the trees and worked our way up through a cliff section, finally clearing all the trees and getting onto moorland.  The visibility was poor and we could hear a shepherd shouting to his dogs.  Finally, we reached the col, and then had another 1km before reaching the second and final col.  There was still nothing to see because of the cloud.  We worked our way down the path towards the refuge, which we knew was about 45 minutes walk.  While I was checking the map to see how far we had to go, the cloud cleared slightly, and there it was about 100m from us.  We arrived at 2:30pm.  The Andorrans were there and told us they were planning on heading on to the next refuge.  They left and shortly afterwards the rain started pouring down.  A short while later the Andorrans returned having decided it was too wet to walk.  A German family whom we had passed early on arrived two hours after us, and said they had been up on the tops when the thunder and lightning started.  Not very pleasant for them!  The cloud rolled in and out all afternoon, plus thunder and lightning, while everyone sat inside reading and playing games.