My Pyrenees HRP Diary - Introduction

This blog was begun in 2015, to record my walk along the Pyrenees HRP from Hendaye to Banyuls. If you want to read about that, I suggest you start here.

But that is all in the past now, and I have expanded the blog a little to cover more recent events.. such as:

Pennine Way 2024
Snowdonia Way 2017
Hebden Bridge 2015
Equipment Reviews
North Downs Way 2017
Pennine Way 2019

I hope you will find something interesting. Please do provide a little feedback or comment, and if you are interested in something that I didn't say enough about, please let me know .. happy walking!



Jerry

Wednesday, 19 August 2015

HRP Day 42 cabane Coms de Jan - Refuge du Rulhe

Tuesday 18 August 2015

In the morning, it was cloudy but it was not raining. I gathered my stuff together, put on what seemed least wet, had a rather meagre breakfast (hot chocolate and 2 day old bread, supplies are starting to run low now) and set off about 9am, in full rain gear because all the grass etc was wet and given the forecast, rain was likely at some point. . for the first hour or so things were fine, then the clouds came down and I found myself inside one, for the rest of the day, as it turned out. Chilly and dank, with visibility only 10m or so, I plodded on, up and down. I eventually reached the Refuge du Rulhe  about 4pm, cold and wet, but that bit nearer the Mediterranean.
Rulhe is in fact in France. Tomorrow, I briefly revisit Andorra for the last time, before reaching L'Hospitalet and leaving Andorra for good.
I can't say I shall be sorry to see the back of it. It is wild, remote country and difficult walking, physically demanding, and coupled with the poor weather and lack of facilities, I am feeling a bit drained. I hope to have a rest day in L'Hospitalet, and I need it. This has been the hardest section so far. I have no clean clothes, and not many dry ones. My knees ache. I must do some shopping too as I have little food left. L'Hospitalet is south of Ax-les-Thermes, perhaps there will be a bus. To think, I could have been at the Throg. club lunch!
Rulhe is a friendly refuge. The guardian,  Calou is nice. I try to persuade him to let me connect to his wifi router but he says no. He offers to let me send an email from his laptop. I accept the kind offer, thinking I might be able to discover the network password, but no. Instead I send an email to Sue that she must have been surprised to receive. .
According to my pedometer, which I'm not sure I trust here in the mountains, I went over 400 miles at some time yesterday.

view from the cabane, perhaps 8am. 
nearly 2,700m up, but not a lot to see
this is a lake, a big lake according to the map
the common room in the Refuge du Rulhe. Note the large quantity of things hanging up to dry.  

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