Pico Musales

For some time now, I’ve started off every year with a hike. This year was no different. Although, my New Year’s Day “hikes” over the years have been progressing from casual hikes to more challenging adventures, getting outside remains as important as ever to me.

For New Year’s Day 2022, my partner selected a route to Pico Musales in the Pyrenees. I think primarily because it was new to him and also because it’s popular ski mountaineering route flagged for beginners. However, since I am so very new to ski mountaineering, it made sense to check it out before tackling it on skis.

I was excited, as it would be my first winter mountain of the season, but I was also considerably nervous as I was still recovering from some pain in the back of my heel. I had just started running again, mostly on flattish surfaces, and I wasn’t sure how it would cope with steep, snow terrain and my mountain boots which are stiff at the heel.

The forecast called for a warm day, so in addition to crampons and piolet, we also brought our snowshoes based on advice from one of the ski mountaineers my partner spoke with at the trailhead. She said the snow was really soft the day before. It was welcome advice, and we were eventually thankful for carrying the extra weight.

The route we took starts at a reservoir called la Sarra outside the town of Sallent de Gállego. Much of the way up to the final summit push can be done via a long, winding fire road, which is a likely explanation for why it is considered a good beginner ski mountaineering route.

If you are not on skis, like us, you can skip the long switchbacks of the road by taking steeper sections of trail that cut more or less through them. The fire road had snow almost from the start, but the trails cutting through the forest did not, so it took some time before we put on our snowshoes. Once the trail also started to have snow, it became much more difficult to find the places where it turned off the fire road. We also put on our snowshoes at this point and promptly got a bit off track trying to find one of the final cut throughs and needed to back track to the road. I also sort of started regretting climbing a mountain before my heel was fully healed. Walking on the snow in just my boots was more or less okay, but the snowshoes were painful whenever we weren’t climbing steeper terrain where I could use the climbing bar. I spent some time wondering if I should turn back. Although fortunately, the pain in my heel never got much worse throughout the day.

Eventually, we finished with the cut-through trails and reached the road for the final time, just below a refuge. Here, the fire road curved up toward the refuge and the summer route to Pico Musales, which heads up to a small lake and a wide gully with steep rocky peaks on either side. We chose to turn in the opposite direction, circling around some of those rocky peaks on one side of the gully. This is the winter route because it’s more protected from avalanches.

The snow here became quite soft, and we kept sinking deeply despite the snowshoes. Finally, we came out on a wide ridge, with the gully of the summer route on our left, another, higher rocky ridge to our right, and Pico Musales more or less in front of us. Before heading for the final, steep summit approach, I switched from my snowshoes to crampons.

However, instead of following the ski mountaineers in traversing toward the broad slope to the summit, we went up a short, narrow gully next to it, which brought us a little bit further up that slope. I complained heartily about this deviation, as I generally do when we take a harder or more exposed route instead of staying in my comfort zone. In the end though, I was thankful for a little bit of interest, as trudging up that broad slope full of soft snow felt like it took forever. There’s nothing like climbing up a wide expanse of snow to slow time to a near stop.

On our final approach, we shared the slope with a number of ski mountaineers. We both remarked that we were happy to not be on skis because this final slope was outside of our limited skill set in this area.

When we were almost near the top, one of the skiers below us fell and slid, uninjured, down a good part of the slope. I felt for her—to lose that distance—it’s just so disheartening. We, however, continued to the summit for the views of the mountain beyond and a lake below that we had been by during a backpacking trip in 2019.

We didn’t stay long on the summit due to the time. Between our off-trail detours, subsequent backtracking, my waffling about whether I could continue, and the soft snow, it had taken us much longer than expected. As we started down, we noticed that the skier who had fallen was making her way back up the slope. I was incredibly impressed. I don’t think I could have done it. I probably would have given up and just gone down. But I’m generally a quitter.

Not long after we made it down the slope and to the ridge, most of the skiers descended, whooping with joy as they went. I whooped back. I couldn’t help but be caught up in their enthusiasm. How nice and how quick and how lucky they are to have the skill to do such things with ease.

After that moment of vicarious elation, the rest of our descent was a slog. I mean an absolute sloooooog. The snow, now much softer, kept swallowing our legs with nearly every step. We had put off putting our snowshoes back on because walking downhill in moderately soft snow with crampons is a beautiful dream, time passing quickly in spectacular scenery. But this was not moderately soft. This was like walking through a pile of down pillows, but like cold sharp ones that had traps underneath. Those traps were the holes between the boulders lining the terrain below.

I got my foot so stuck one time that my partner literally had to dig me out with my piolet. It reminded me of one time I got stuck in the snow in my own front yard and had to wait for my mom to come get me out. I did not like it then and nor do I like it now. After my partner also got a little bit stuck, we finally decided to put on the snowshoes, which was only a minor improvement.

We continued sinking our way down the mountain until we reached the fire road. This time, now marked with our snowshoe tracks from before, we were easily able to find the trails. Eventually, the snow on these trails petered out, and we took of the snowshoes and continued without traction all the way down to the final intersection with the fire road. The reservoir was just a little way beyond, and we casually raced the light, arriving after sunset but just before dark as is often our way in the mountains.