Vilamos Vall d'Aran 19/06/2016

Today it was a motorbike day. I'm in a group called www.mototurisme.cat which organizes a monthly motorbike trip. This month the router started near Ponts and ended in a restaurant close to Vielha, Vall d'Aran.

We usually are around 40-50 motorbike but this time we were only around 20-25. The main reason was that Vielha is far away from Barcelona. People who came back home straight after the trip did around 700 km. I didn't have to go back to Barcelona because I stayed at El Pont de Suert to stay with my grandparent for a day.

The route was amazing, specially the Bonaigua pass (Port de la Bonaigua). It was quite cold, near 1ºC. We stopped at the top of the pass and did a group photo and headed to Vilamos, a small nice town where we visited a typical Aran house and we saw the outside of a church.

After the visit we went to the Restaurant where we ate. The group disbanded after eating and everybody went back home. I headed to El Pont the Suert, it's a short trip, circa 30 min.

Peak of Corronco 12/08/2015

Today we did a long hiking trip near the El Pont de Suert, the climb to the peak of Corronco. We started in the chapel of Sant Salvador d'Irgo de Tor. I visited this chapel in a previous bike trip, this time instead of being the ending it's the starting point. We reach the chapel around 7.30 a.m as we want to avoid the sun as much as possible and start the climb.

The path is decent but we decide to take some steeper shortcuts, it's harder to climb but faster. After 40 minutes we reach de mountain ridge. There are no trees, no clouds ... no shadows, during all the hiking trip the sun is hitting us. Even though we are "well" equipped with 3 liters of water per person we run out water at the half of the way back. So if anybody wants to do this trip it's importat to have that mind, there are no fountains, water or shadows.

The path is practicaly inexistent but as there is low grass and "cow paths" so the walk is easy but steep. At the end of the horizon we can see the peak, it's a bit frustating to see how far away it is but there are nice view which make everything easier.

Peak of corronco

After 4 hours of walking, with some stops for resting and eating some snacks, we reach the top (2543 m of altitude). There we eat our well deserved sandwich. After eating and taking some photos we start going back home which is much faster but not as satisfying. As all way back is downhill the walking puts a lot of strees in the knees.

After 7 hours 34 minutes we are back in the chapel. We have walked 14.9 km and gained an accumulated altitude of around 1200 meters.

Congost De Mont-Rebei 10/08/2015

New motorbike and hiking trip. This one is a bit special as it's shorter than usual but at the end we are able to take a path in the lake. The path is, however, narrow, rocky and with lots of ups and downs.

We start the trip in El pont the Suert, as the last, one and we head to Pont de Montanyana following the N-230. After reaching the later we must cross a bridge and follow some "paved" roads. The N-230 is amazing to ride with the motorcycle, full of turns, great asphalt and not many cars. You may find some trucks but they are easy to take over.

After arriving to the Congost de Mont-Rebei's parking they ask us to pay 4 euros for each car and 4 euros for every two motorbike. It's not going to happen as we park the motorbikes some meters away of the parking and walk this lasts meters.

From that point the hiking starts. It takes around 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to the swimming place. As usual the GPS decided no to take the track of the path. Because we wanted to take a bath at the end of the walk the hiking started at 3.30pm, one of the worst hours, the sun was killing us.

The views of the mountains were spectacular. And some parts of the hiking paths looked like they were taken from films. At the end of the hiking we took the well gained bath and after a couple hours headed back to the parking.

In the way back we decided to take a look into a deep cave. To get there some easey climbing was needed nothing super dangerous as there where lots of place to put the hands. The cave was huge but we only got the light from the mobile flash so we didn't go much deep inside it. I want to go there again with some decent light and explore it.

Views from the cave.

After finishing the hiking back to the parking we had to re-do the initial motorbike trip. This time we couldn't have as much fun because it was getting darker (it was already 9 p.m) and some animals could jump into the road.