My boss asked me, as a favour, to take this week off while some essential works are done ... looking at predicted temperatures of 41°C at home (thanks global warming!) I thought I'd try getting high for the week, in terms of altitude. Because it would be cooler, in terms of temperature. My other half was surprisingly keen for me to go away on my own, so I trundled up to the nearest part of the Pyrenees, a whopping 230km away.


A photo en-route at 1700m altitude, it was still pretty hot:



I traveled light with a super compact single person tent, super compact summer sleeping bag, a thin air-mattress, minimal spare clothing, and only a few kilos of snacks. I managed to get lucky with a 20€ camping spot, which for high season is a bargain apparently. Normally I'd just wild camp so I can fart in peace, but this was not the time of year to start skipping on showers.


Waking up aching all over (because to get in and out of the damn tent is like an advanced yoga class) I decided to follow my nose and found a rather nice trail while it was still early enough that most people were still in bed:



This turned out to be the high point of the trip to be honest, because being in the peak of holiday season there were people everywhere on every road and on every trail. I managed to get the Himalayan a bit overheated by going to an abandoned village which required first gear to make it up the 1 in 4 twisting trail for about 4km, but I didn't take a photo of that since to be honest we have better abandoned villages here at home!


After a few dead ends and still feeling achy I gave up on trails, and as the day warmed up I decided to pursue higher altitude on-road. This got me up to about 2000m, which was pleasantly cooler at only about 30°C and gave some nice views:



And also showed a way to an unpaved road through a ski resort, which went down through a bit of forest to ... another dead end, yay!



I have to say that at that point I lost my patience, and went and found a nice cool café to hide in. The next morning, feeling even more achy and now with a bit of an upset stomach and a bad case of grumpiness, I decided to just cut my losses and head home. Once I got there my other half pointed out I was obviously ill and should have come home earlier so ... I'll go try the Pyrenees again when I'm not ill, when it's not jamb-packed with other tourists, and when there isn't a heatwave!

In conclusion, it was a doomed trip from the get-go, but lessons have been learned

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Indeed, if work asks me to take time off in the summer again I'm going to just say no, for a start!

I think that the way to enjoy off-roading there is probably to just follow some trails from Wikiloc or something, yesterday me and my other half headed out from home for 70km of off roading and we just took turns deciding which way to go* but that doesn't work up in the mountains because of the mix of privately owned ski resort land and stringent nature reserves (I live on a nature reserve too, but all the trails are open to motor vehicles).

* it was cool, we found an Alpaca farm, had to move dead trees out of the way, and got stuck in mud. A properly good trail ride

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