Blog
I open my eyes after what felt like a lifetime of silence and solace to a desert view complete with twenty story tall red and sandstone walls. It’s still dark out, but the sky is no longer black but a nice light hue that hangs over the canyon that we are comfortably tucked away in. My feet are cool in the sand and my muscles tell me, “Stretch, please, stretch!”
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There was an obvious mountain Pic d'Escales on the way to Arbas TP, so we hiked up. Inigo and his supporter were 2km in front so overtaking them was a fun goal for the morning, on the 7th day any extra motivation was welcome. Chris and I cut all the road corners and flew off Mont Sijon, I also pushed quite deep into the lee side of Col de la Béne. Well, let's just say that I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for racing, but I survived.
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In the morning, despite low clouds, I hiked up to Santa Marina with Chris. Nice hike to kick off the day but difficult to find a takeoff, and hard to imagine how I would clear the very shallow, never ending ridge with see of trees on the one side and no road and no landings on the other side, which by the way is in the airspace...
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X-Pyr is a one weeklong adventure race zigzagging throughout the whole Pyrenees, from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean Sea. The athletes can move only by flying their paragliders or hiking and caring their flying gear on their back. It takes place every other year and attracts the best pilots and hike & fly athletes in the world. This year I was the only woman qualified.
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When you go backpacking during the July/August monsoon season in the San Juan mountains of Colorado you can expect rain and sometimes a lot of it like this summer, one of the top 5 wettest in history. It rained almost every day of this hike that began on June 23 at Cumbres Pass on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) at the New Mexico/ Colorado border. Ironically, Deb and I drove to Chama, NM the day before where we discovered the town in a state of emergency! The entire town was without water due to an undiscovered leak and the town’s holding tanks had run dry. In town our favorite motel, the Chama Trails Inn, was open but with portable bathrooms in the lot and serving bottled drinking water. We made do with deli food from the nearby grocery store as I organized my gear.
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