Colomina refuge, 7/17

Perfect day! Got a decent night's sleep and a decent breakfast. Said goodbyes to some of our friends -- the Swedish sisters, the Spanish family, and the French family with dog -- who were, sadly, ending their trip because their dog was poorly. Had a little cry thinking about their pooch.

But then we headed out, climbing gradually through a forest until we reached a ridge we followed around. We dropped down to a lake, first crossing a boulder field that, though it involved some jumping and scrambling, but there were obvious markers. Then we went up and over a pass -- only 200 meters less than yesterday's pass, but lovely and zig-zaggy and not very rocky. The Collada des Dellui had me breathless but I blame the altitude. A brief pause at the top -- too windy to linger -- and then a quick descent down to the Estany Eixerola. Nice wander along the lakes -- Monola, Tort -- and we took a lovely long lunchbreak overlooking Estany Mariola. Nice picnics today -- huge cheese sandwiches, nuts, pineapple juice, an apple, and a KitKat.

Then back on our feet and along Estany Tort. We reached a couple of points where you could walk along the top of a dam or go up and down to get to the other side. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and stuck to the low route. A couple of times we saw people start across the dams, get freaked out, and have to be helped across. Ha.

Got to one point with a faint trail up a hill and another faint trail following some old rail tracks. We decided that any decent guide would mention train tracks, so it must not be the route. It was. We ended up going up and over the hill rather than gently around it. Oh well. So we followed the tracks for 15 minutes or so, and then turned up the steep slope to Colomina. 30 minutes of steep climbing on a nice path -- and there it was. Really pretty == they've got Tibetan prayer flags, the logo incorporates a dove, and they've got 4 16-bed rooms instead of a massive 70-bed room.

The staff is sweet -- they keep smiling at us == even when we arrived behind a large group of first-nighters who were fiddling with their forfaits. But we got some rum and cokes and went to sit by the lake.

The route today was perfect -- no real scrambling, about as described time-wise, and I never feared for my life. Still happy to have an easy day coming up tomorrow.