We spent Christmas itself with Ali's family in the North, a lovely few days of catching up, winter walks (mostly in wellies!) and feasting (including Christmas dinner with TWO turkeys and a ham!!!). But for New Year we swapped waterlogged blighty for the cold but sunny Pre-Pyrenees, spending the rest of the holiday with my parents in Santa Engracia, near Tremp. The village and cottage were pretty special, and in spite of a slight mishap(!) we had a great time climbing, walking, sunbathing(!) and of course a second Christmas dinner!
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| The spectacularly positioned village of Santa Engracia |
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| The village church overlooking the cloud inversion that often forms in the valley - lovely to look at from above, less appealing to be stuck underneath! |
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| Looking down on the church and cottage courtyard... next to some dinosaur footprints too apparently! |
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| The courtyard of Casa Mauri - our apartment was spread over three floors beneath this! |
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| Not a bad view from the apartment! Looking over to the village of Talarn |
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| Nice features in the courtyard... |
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| Evening light on the church - taken from the balcony! |
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| Ali gets arty with the stone wall in the bedroom |
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| Merry Christmas! Relaxing after the Christmas feast and presents... First photo taken with Ali's new Gorilla pod! |
We spent most of the first week climbing during the day, the cottage being fairly close to many world-class climbing areas. It was lovely in the sun, but pretty bitter in the shade! We went to Collegats gorge on the first day, but it was just too cold to contemplate climbing so after admiring the rock formations (that supposedly inspired Gaudi!) we hastily moved into the sun...
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| Weird rock formations in the icy-cold gorge... |
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| Can you spot the Sagrada Familia? |
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| We swapped the gorge for Sector Cine - a nice conglomerate edge in the sun :-) (much better than it looks in this photo by the way! Like a mini Riglos) |
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| The second day we got an early start and headed to Vilanova de Meia, winding our way over a tiny mountain pass. Here's the view as we drove up, with the Pyrenees in the background... |
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| Climbing the amazing rock at Vilanova de Meia, super pristine water-worn limestone :-) |
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| The top! We had even had huge vultures circling us as we climbed... |
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| Admiring the views from the knife-edge summit ridge - spot our car on the road below! |
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| We also spent a lot of time at this place (Bruixes) - a spectacular wall dripping with Tufa! |
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| Ali on his way down! |
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| Some random climber enjoying the tufa! |
In addition to climbing, we had several days of walking - including a fantastic day up in the Aiguestortes, the National Park about an hour north of Santa Engracia...
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| The taxi office in Espot - It was a nice surprise to find the 4x4 taxis were still running up to the St Maurici lake, allowing us to avoid the initial icy slog through the forest and spend more time up high :-) |
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| Arriving to muchos snow! Mum and dad put on snowshoes in preparation for their walk! |
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| Posing for the gorilla pod (this time attached to a tree!) |
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| Estany Ratera |
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| Muchos snow! |
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| The snow gets deeper as we near the Amitges Refuge - snowshoes would have been helpful here! |
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| Beneath the Agulles d'Amitges - looking a bit different from when we climbed here in the summer! |
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| Ali braves a walk on the Amitges Lake! |
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| The beautifully positioned Amitges refuge - closed but we had a pleasant picnic on the terrace! |
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| Looking down on the St Maurici Lake from the viewpoint - well worth the detour! |
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| Back safely to meet the taxi - the frozen St Maurici Lake. |
However, our fortunes changed slightly towards the end of the week as Ali took a fall while climbing at Bruixes. It was only a short distance into mid-air but he fell awkwardly pulling his shoulder out of its socket! OUCH!!!! A very painful few hours ensued as we made our way down the hill and to the hospital. Despite being full(!) the hospital managed to get Ali's arm back in, but only after 8 hours in A&E and a general anaesthetic - his shoulder muscles were too big apparently! So from this point on we swapped ropes for a sling and walking boots and had a number of lovely days out walking in the sun and snow. We cooked plenty of nice meals too so it didn't spoil the holiday!
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| Broken Ali :-( |
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| Who needs to climb when you can sunbathe on the balcony?! |
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| Me cooking - a rare sight as Ali is normally chef! He was still on hand to supervise though ;-) |
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| Chicken breast wrapped in bacon, stuffed with cheese, ceps and spinach... mmmmm |
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| Jamie eat your heart out! |
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| The sausage monster! |
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| Stopping off at the church on the way to Abella de La Conca... Ali using his gorilla pod on rock this time! |
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| Dinosaur footprints! |
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| Spot the dinosaur! |
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| Abella de La Conca - A tiny village surrounded by huge cliffs and rock spines |
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| The pretty village church in Abella de la Conca... |
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| A small town literally built into the side of the mountain! |
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| You could even belay from your bedroom! |
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| Lunch on our walk from the village... We counted around 30 vultures circling above us - they must have been eyeing up our sandwiches! |
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| Whilst mum and dad walked, we spent some time sunbathing here... Not a bad spot! |
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| Mum and Dad return! |
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| Starting the day with a coffee at Port Aine - Dad definitely earned his driving up the super steep and windy access road! |
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| Cruising the lifts to the beginning of our walk... |
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| Lunch with a view on the summit ridge... |
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| One-armed Ali plods up towards the summit! |
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| The summit (and no we couldn't take the lift all the way!) |
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| Snowy summit panorama... |
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| Sun and snow - and hardly any skiers?! |
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| Our route back down followed a blue run this time - a bit steeper than the green run up! |
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| I wish I'd had skis!!! |
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| Big Air Dude... watching some gnarly boarders in the snow park. |
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| Back at the cafe for another well-earned drink... spot the gorilla pod! |
We had to leave mum and dad for a few days after the first week as our pesky students wanted some lessons, but we were back up the following weekend for more snow action... The place this time was Tavascan - a tiny little resort (one lift and one refuge) up an even tinier windy mountain road! Again dad earned an arrival coffee and mum was perhaps in need of something stronger...
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| Starting out through the trees... |
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| Mirador del Corviu - a perfect lunch spot! |
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| We awoke to a total white out on Sunday and it was snowing heavily for a short time... Unfortunately it didn't last and the snow didn't settle so romantic notions of being snowed in and having another week off work went out of the window :-( |
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