We had a single day track in mind for the penultimate day of our journey. When we arrive at the lake Presa de Cavallers the weather is sunny and the mountain views gorgeous – we decide to try staying at night in a mountain hut instead of driving 80km back to the hotel.
At the beggining the path follows the shore of the lake, soon after we have left the lake behind we drop the planned track for the another one that leads to the Ventosa i Calvell hut. We don’t know if the hut is still open so we feel delighted when noticing from the distance that the window shutters are open. To be on the safe side we drop in to ask – and yes, we can stay here and get some dinner, breakfast and the picnic (something to take away tomorrow).
We have a couple of hours before our dinner hence we decide to take a short hike to Travesani lake and summit. Watching the lake from above and the summit from below – the latter looks like one should have to be a mountain climber to get there. And we see a couple of them just doing that 🙂
They save power consumption and fuel for the furnace in the hut (the season is over, we are almost the only guests here). We keep close to the small oven which is the only one in the large dining room. They serve traditional Spanish onion soup and some other superior meals. When going off for the rest we take on every cloth we have and put two blankets on top. The forecast about freezing to death turns out to be wrong though.
We get our picnics 🙂 after the breakfast and take a departure. The plan B in case if we don’t manage to climb the 3014m high Punta Alta de Comalesbienes summit – is to go back the way we came yesterday. The plan B fades though gradually as we move on (the track this way grows longer 🙂 ).
We reach Estany de la Roca (i.e. rock lake – it has a rock in the middle indeed) by a comparatively easy track. The path gets steeper after the lake and brings us into the shade of the mountain. They have frozen soil and ice covered stones here. It happens somehow gradually and soon we understand we are on the steep damned slippery slope. We move forward as fast as snails because there is nothing we could cling to and slithering down does not look as an attractive endeavor at all. We both try some nevertheless – nothing more than a couple of scratches and torn trousers luckily.
Not sure if we should proceed to the summit, yet turning back and going down looks even more dangerous. Then we get the glimpse of sunlit rocks some twenty meters ahead and move on. Soon enough the dangerous part is left behind – the rest is just an ordinary rock climbing 🙂
The summit drowns in the sunshine, clouds, summits and lakes (we count more than ten) all around. We enjoy plenty of this and then down we go by the opposite slope. No surprises there apart from the descend being longer and tougher then we might remember from the last time we were here. In three and a half hours we are at the parking place.