Should I Bring My Ice Axe? A Week in Andorra, Part 2

As I mentioned last week in Bring Your Skis and Earplugs: A Week in Andorra, Part 1, three days of skiing was enough for me and my partner, so we decided switched to one of our more usual activities—winter hiking/mountaineering. Unfortunately, I had started feeling rather unwell. It had begun a couple days before, on our second day of skiing, with a scratchy throat. At the time, I attributed it to the fact that our delightful Murphy bed unfolded directly below the giant, wall-mounted heater that ran uncontrollably throughout the night, sucking out all my precious moisture. But then, my throat progressed from scratchy to painful on our last day of skiing. Over the holidays, several of my coworkers caught COVID and described a painfully sore throat as one of their symptoms, so I obsessively googled symptoms before slogging to the pharmacy.

Lest you worry that I was spreading a virulent disease across the ski resort, rest assured: I did not have COVID, just an ordinary, average cold. While relieved (the thought of dealing with a COVID diagnosis on vacation was overwhelming), I was also somewhat incensed—after passing nearly two years without getting sick, following all the masking requirements, and avoiding people (I mean, I do this anyway just for fun) and eating out, I got a cold on vacation. I mean, come on? But I wasn’t going to let my infectious cold hold me back from the environmental cold. Plus, staying in the super dry apartment seemed like a worse idea to me, so I jammed my pockets full of throat lozenges and folded up toilet paper and headed into the snow.

Pico dels Padrons

Fortunately, I didn’t have to head far. The first mountain on our list, Pico dels Padrons, was literally just on the edge of town, and also in France. So we walked down into the main part of town and turned onto a side road, crossing a small bridge into France. The downside of being so close to town was that the first portion of the route, traversing a flat expanse of snow, was littered with dog poop. After carefully stepping our way across, we stopped to put on snowshoes once the route started going up and into the softer snow.

The grade was mild in the beginning and mostly quite easy. However, the snow, which was soft and topped with an unreliable crust, made walking, even in snowshoes, a bit difficult. But we were in no rush so ambled along, eventually reaching a broad ridge where we could see to the valley on the other side.

We continued along this ridge, where the snow occasionally petered out to bare grass and rock due to the wind, until we started heading up again. Just before the final summit, which was very steep and short, we switched to crampons. We climbed up this steep portion, emerging from between two rocks onto a jagged ridge.

The summit was along this ridge and a bit complicated. It turns out that Pico dels Padrons has two peaks separated by a ridge that is somewhat exposed in some places. Apparently, a lot of people just go to this first of the two peaks and call it a day. We chose to continue to the second peak, which is supposedly the “true” peak, as maybe it looks higher but not by much honestly. There was another group on the summit with us, and one of them seemed very worried about whether it was okay to just go to the first peak—reflecting the ever-present concern of “does it count.” But unless you are after first ascents or fastest-known times, whether it counts only really matters to you. Personally, I say, “Good enough.”

The nice part, however, of continuing along the ridge to the second summit was that we had it mostly to ourselves. We also got to see where the ridge veered down to a saddle next to what was most likely a series of snow-covered alpine lakes. We considered heading down that way to make a loop, but after starting down the ridge and looking at the snow slope we would descend, I kind of balked. It was quite steep, and the top had some weird flocking due to the wind that made me feel it could potentially be an avalanche risk. So we went back up to just below the summit to have lunch before going back down the way we came. Because it was a nice sunny day, the snow progressed from hardish near the summit to super soft as we got closer to town. Even with snowshoes, walking was unbearably slow-going. So before longer than we would have liked, we were finally picking our way back across the snowy poop-mine field and returning to Andorra. After a short, slightly uphill walk through town, we were relaxing in our warm, overly dry apartment.

After Pico dels Padrons, we took the day off, mostly due to the weather, but I was grateful to have a chance to rest. While everyone else went down to the Andorra de la Vella, the capital, I stayed in the apartment recuperating, reading, doing a little exercise, and writing. The following day, which would be our last in Andorra, my partner and I planned to hike to two nearby peaks, also visible from Pas de la Casa—Pic d’Envalira and Pic Negre d’Envalira.

That night, however, our neighbors decided to have a ragingly loud party because, as they explained to my partner, it was their last night. I have mentioned previously that where we were staying in Andorra was loud at night, but with my earplugs and my sleep headphones playing one of my favorite audiobooks by David Eddings, I didn’t really have much of a problem. That night though, both earplugs and headphones failed to dull the deafening singing coming from next door. Both my partner and I went at separate times, both musing beforehand, “Should I bring the ice axe?” Finally, they assured my partner that they were taking the party outside, which they thankfully did. Still, we started our last day in Andorra a little sleepier than one might like for a vacation.

Pic d’Envalira and Pic Negre d’Envalira

To get to the start of the route to these peaks, we again had to cross the village. But this time, we headed up to the farthest ski lifts, which service a couple very easy slopes, including a training slope and one for kids. We actually walked up the short, gentle training slope, continuing beyond it to a snow-covered lake.

I imagine the lake must be a beautiful and popular spot in the spring and/or summer because it came equipped with a “selfie” point—a pillar with a slot for your phone. And of course, I used it.

We circled around the lake, heading up next to the lift path for one of the longer, gentle ski slopes in this area. Almost near the end, where the skiers were exiting the lift, we turned off towards a steep slope up to a saddle, which was covered in steep, dense snow. It was challenging and exhausting to climb up. Even with my snowshoes, my feet sank to the shin with every step, making the next one feel like I was walking up two stairs at a time. Finally, near the saddle, the snow became a little harder and easier to walk on, especially since my snowshoes are designed for mountain climbing.

From there, we traversed around the slope of another snow-covered alpine lake, where we encountered the only other person we would see outside of town that day. Then, we started up a slope of mostly exposed rocks and ice so quickly swapped the snowshoes for crampons. It was miserable on that slope, as a cold, frigid wind bared down on us the entire way. When we reached the next saddle, I wasn’t feeling too well. The lack of sleep combined with my cold symptoms that had now progressed to a stuffy nose made me wish to be somewhere warm and less wintery or at least in a nice sauna or something.

We were almost there though, with the peak in sight. I pushed on up the much more gradual slope to the first summit, across a mix of exposed grass and rocks and deep snow. From the summit, we could see the ski area surrounding Pas de La Casa down below us, in addition to the next summit, which was quite close but looked very steep. Because of the wind, we didn’t stay long and quickly turned toward the next peak.

In the end, the climb up to the second summit was not as steep as it appeared, and we were on the summit in no time—taking a few pictures before sheltering on some rocks a little lower down to have some lunch. Afterwards, while packing up, I ripped a whole in my big winter puffy. It caught on the tip of my piolet as I was stuffing it into my bag. I patched it with the only sticky thing I had, a small oval of moleskin usually used for blister prevention. It would hold the feathers in until I could put a proper patch on it. I was disappointed at what felt like an error of inattentiveness because of my cold. When we went to Pico dels Padrons, I didn’t put the lid on the thermos very tightly and spilled sugary tea all over my wind pants and jacket, which are thankfully waterproof. And, I would later discover I did the same thing on this day, but instead dousing part of my partner’s puffy in sticky tea. Maybe, I should have just stayed in the apartment.

Unlike the previous hike, the trip down took less the half the time it took us to go up. The frigid slope was still frigid, so we rushed through it the best we could. The slope with the soft heavy snow was far easier to walk down, which is pretty usual, not to mention enjoyable. Once in our apartment, we saw a large bus outside filling with people much younger than us. We presumed (or hoped) it was the partiers from next door and looked forward to a better night’s sleep for our final night. (Ahh, the shifting priorities of age.) If not, I suppose I could always have shown them the damage in my puffy while erratically waving my piolet outside their door in my wrinkly pajamas. Would it work though? Or would they just think I was crazy? Well, regardless, the threat of crazy can work pretty well.