Gnome Trek. Episode 4: The Walks of Attrition.

 Escaping the plague.

View from the Tuc de Tucol

There are few places on Earth where this pestilence has not reached. Where this blight has not insinuated itself. Where this abhorrent scourge of humanity has not penetrated. 

We needed to escape the dreaded Boris...

We had formed a team, a group of us that could take on all comers, repel all borders. Farrage the Repellant was not available (being on a beach near Dover) so we remained just the four us; myself, my significant other, my eldest and my hairy beast. Four of us (whose names, for obvious reasons, must remain public) set off in the Mad Gnome to our mountain retreat. 

Where could be safer?

The Gnome stands waiting...

And so it was dear readers, we found ourselves, once again, in our Hydeaway. Our objective? To whittle away the weakest of us. 

Le Sentier de Découvertes

On our first full day, we set off over the border into the Ariège, to walk 'le Sentier de Découvertes', to see what we could discover.

It was do be our first walk of attrition, to see which of us could survive its varied and rugged challenges.

Well over four hours of hill walking, steeply up and slippery down. 

The reward? Stunning views (made plain by inadequate photographic skills).

To achieve these giddying heights, we had to ford raging torrents...

Sky points out a possible route across the raging torrent.

Fighting off ravening beasts...

Sky looks bemused.

Pushing our sense of playing-silly-buggers to the extreme...

Spiderman?

We climbed deep into the wood, avoiding the grasp of reaching roots...

An aged tree moves slowly toward us...

evading the toxic fumes and cascading molten rock from a nearby volcano giving birth to death...

Escaping from horned and monstrously vile creatures...

Another attempt at a bemused expression.

Plunging deep into the earths core...

Sky looking knackered and yet still bemused.

until finally reaching our destination...

... back to where we had started.

It had been a long hard journey, and not all of us survived. Sky had reached her limit. Her prematurely ageing knees had nearly bent their final bend. She was beyond cream-crackered. She refused to move from a state of recumbency the following three days, to leave just three of us to attempt the ensuing day's test.

L'Escalette.

We awoke the following day with most of our joints in approximately the right place, to face a simpler test.

A stump.

This task was one that we had undertaken before; a simple climb to the top of the Escalette through forest, then a simple decent to a cherished auberge for sustenance.

Precipitous view over St Beat.

The view from there was vertiginous. This feeling is one I get every time that I am near a heart-rending, stomach-churning, soul-gobbling drop of more than about ten centimetres. And this was no exception. Another one of my many useless super-powers. 

A quick snap of the camera and gulp of the stomach muscles, and I was away.

After sustenance was greedily consumed, we returned to the Hydeaway and rested our battered bodies. 

Would all three of us be capable of the next challenge? Will the public phone in to vote?

Le Tuc de Tucol.

The next day dawned, but not all joints functioned as necessary. Sky was still horizontal, and so was Jon. Sadly he had climbed his last climb, limped his last limp, leaving just Annick and I for the final challenge.

This was the climb to end all climbs. Starting from the parking de la fontain d'ours we set off for well over an hour of continual upwards striving, crawling and groaning before gaining the dizzying heights and the first glimpse of our goal.

This climb was far from easy. My legs started to complain, my lungs strained for space, and my heart commenced impeachment processes on my brain. Was this an attempted suicide?

But no, we had made it.

The trees bowed down before us.

The mountains and valleys were cowed by our immense accomplishment.

We had both achieved what, months before, had seemed impossible. This was the taste of success! The passion of finally achieving an impossible dream!! Tomorrow we would challenge the world!!!

The next day it pissed down.

________

And so, did we achieve our goal and escape the ravages of the viral Boris? Well, it seems that whilst in the Pyrenees, the whole area had been declared a Red Zone.

Bollocks.