Forget The Refugio, Bring on Torla
It rained all night and was still raining this morning. Miguel telephoned the Refugio de Goriz and was informed there were heavy snow conditions in the mountains. Presented to the group, all decided a two-hour hike in the rain would be more than sufficient and gladly forget the Refugio. With that decision made, the van drove us to a location in the Parque Nacional de Ordesa for an out and back along the Ordesa River. ...View image... Ordesa Park is made up of three separate valleys starting out of Monte Perdido. This area was carved by glaciers, and runs east to west rather than north to south like most valleys.
The forest gave some shelter from most of the heavy rain and was beautiful. Green moss on the rocks, wildflowers peeking up through the snow... Some of the many beautiful alpine shrubs and wildflowers were Edelweiss, Gentians, and Belladonna adding some color to the grey day. The scariest part of the day was crossing over wooden bridges made slippery by the rain. Sometimes, I'd rather just wade through the river than face one of those bridges. After all, we were sopping wet anyhow...
From here, the van continued a short distance to Torla for a two-night stay at the Edelweiss Hotel....View image... Torla is a beautiful village filled with traditional slate-roofed houses in the middle of the Ordesa Valley. It would be easy to just situate yourself here and take day walks from the center into the National Park. There are usually hordes of tourists visiting Torla but not on this gloomy and relatively relaxing day for us.
It was still raining, on and off, the next morning but the group is tough (and, we had no choice). I have absolutely no idea where we went. I do have pictures but all I remember was a 3,000 foot ascent and two hours into the park for a total of nine miles. That's how unmemorable today was.
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