It’s different here. Life goes on at a different pace, mountaineering has a different culture. The incredible beauty and uniqueness of the Spanish Pyrenees, and the weather not to be forgotten. Real winter days sometimes, but the Spanish sun doesn’t take long. Skiing in the morning on top of the mountain, in the afternoon in a t-shirt on the rock in the valley: I can’t imagine a better way to spend the day.
And then in the fall … Indian Summer guaranteed. Because the coldness that can be felt at night time, but such beautiful sunny days, the leaves and trees are given the optimal opportunity to transform into the most beautiful colors. Crossing the mountains we clearly see that the seasons develop differently on the north and south sides of a mountain.
The vultures behold it from above. The griffon vulture looking for wings of crows reflecting the sun: the indication that there is a nice snack to get. And the bearded vulture, which then takes possession of the remaining bones. They is a reason for its name, Quebrantahuesos (huesos is Spanish for bones); a bird that feeds itself with the bones of other animals.
Find your own adventure
We don’t find a sign or route marking on every corner here, let alone a lift up. There is room for our own adventure. Here we find traces of the Guerra Civil, of the dictatorship of Franco, of the dinosaurs from way before. Also from shells and marine organisms, because here where we now stand on top of a mountain, there was once a tropical sea. But we also find traces engraved by glaciers, because after the tropical sea, ice was the sculptor of the landscape. We find plants and animals that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. What we see around us tells the complete story. A story that has not ended yet, with sagas and myths that always will exist. With provinces who do or do not want to belong to the same country, who do or do not want to speak the same language, have the same history. The story of the Pyrenees continues.
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