Ansó, 10 September
by Isabel Isherwood - 07:27 on 10 September 2016
I was taken by an urge to do a big walk. Looking up behind Ansó, forested slopes rise to a high, open and inviting grassy ridge. From here you can’t see much more, but up the valley the landscape becomes rockier and more mountainous, eventually meeting the magnificent toothy ridge of the Sierra de Alano. On the north side of the Sierra de Alano is the Taxeras valley which is accessible by car. I planned a walk from Taxeras, relying on Jake and the girls to drop me off; climbing steeply up the north side of the Sierra de Alano and through a narrow pass between two of the ‘teeth’, crossing the grassy plateau beyond to reach the ridge I could see from Ansó, and then dropping gradually back down through the woods to make my own way home.
I woke up early and full of energy, to bright sun and a beautiful day. Jake and the girls did not stir. It became clear that I would not get a lift to Taxeras much before midday. I was itching to get going so decided to reverse the walk. Ten miles or so, call it four hours to allow for climbing, and a bit more for stops…. We arranged a pick-up at Taxeras about 3pm and I set off.
The climb up through the woods was surprisingly hard, and the paths shown on the map and the paths I found on the ground did not seem to bear much relationship to each other. It took me much longer to get to the ridge than I’d expected. The woods are beautiful though, very varied, depending on (I imagine) the aspect, the depth of soil, and the availability of water. The more exposed rocky ground has a stunted open forest of dry pine and holm oak; in the steep-cut valleys the trees are taller and lusher, with beech and many other species I don’t yet recognise. On some slopes the forest has a dense understorey of box, making it seem somehow magical; the girls call it elf forest. These elf forests have a wonderful ground flora of hellebore and hepatica which I’m looking forward to seeing in the springtime.
I reached the ridge at last, and a welcome breeze that carried away the flies that had been irritating me on the climb. The views were breathtaking – forested hills broken by spines of limestone spreading away to the south and west, eventually dropping away to the plain of the Río Aragón. The view north was still obscured by my grassy ridge, but to the east real high Pyrenees were visible – the Castillo d’Acher, Bisaurín and the Sierra de Aïsa, sharp and bright and uncompromising and magnificent.
Up here it started to feel more montane – at the ecotone between forest and grassland, where stunted trees straggle up the hillside amongst scattered junipers, pale grass and the twisted wrecks of ancient pines. Vultures passed effortlessly overhead and groups of choughs swirled around the ridges. The crisp golden grass on the ridge-top was studded with pale purple autumn crocuses, leafless and incongruously fresh-looking amidst the parched vegetation. I skirted the next summit, following a non-existent path shown on the map. The going was hard, through dense stands of juniper and over loose broken scree, scattering accentors and thrushes with my slow, noisy progress. Past the summit, the climb back to the ridge was much steeper and higher than I’d realised, and I was suddenly exhausted. Months of too little exercise catching up with me. It was a long, slow climb, and I collapsed onto the ridge to contemplate the next part of the walk. I was now running rather later than planned……
The view north was startling. My grassy ridge stretched on for perhaps another mile, then ran into the apparently almost-sheer rock face of Peña de Cuello Marcon. I studied the view through binoculars, then looked back at the map, which showed an admittedly steep summit, but with a path climbing the ridge, and second path – which I had intended to take – skirting around below the summit to the west. Through binoculars the ascent of the ridge to the summit looked like a rock-climb, and the ‘path’ to the west evidently had to cross a wide expanse of broken scree then pick its way through alarmingly unstable-looking terrain above a terrifyingly sheer drop to the valley below.
I panicked. Feeling as tired as I now did I didn’t feel capable of negotiating screes and cliffs, and I also realised that I was making much slower progress than I’d expected and had no chance of being at Taxeras by 3. I studied the map and concocted a Plan B, dropping down to the east into the Ansó valley where hopefully Jake and the girls could meet me. I called Jake with the new plan. It went straight through to answerphone. I took a few steps down the side of the ridge and noticed that my phone lost signal immediately. It occurred to me that Jake would probably get no signal further up the valley – where he probably was by now, having planned to do some bouldering with the girls before coming to meet me. I swithered agonisingly for five minutes, and finally decided that the only option really open to me was to keep going as originally planned, and trust Jake to wait for me. I went back to the ridge, called again with the revised plan (in case he should get signal somewhere….), then set off towards the towering and terrifying Peña de Cuello Marcon.
Of course, it was nothing like so terrifying up close. The scree was loose and the going was hard, but it was not really dangerous. And this was the point where the walk really entered proper mountain terrain. The Pyrenees stretched away to the west; rearing cliffs and curves and shards of limestone towering above the forested lower slopes, the folds and unconformities of the rocks unobscured by vegetation. And, scattered here and there amongst the jumble of bare rock, small, incongruously smooth-looking meadows, plateaux and hanging valleys. Chamois clattered across the scree above me, marmots shrieked irritably before running for cover, vultures circled.
Once round Peña de Cuello Marcon I reached the upland meadow of the Plano de Alano, beautiful and hidden and gentle amidst rocky peaks. I crossed the Plano at snail’s pace, my legs feeling like they were being controlled remotely by someone rather incompetent, then crossed through a notch in the sawblade limestone ridge of the Sierra de Alano and dropped vertiginously down to Taxeras….
.....where Jake and the girls were (very good-temperedly) building dens in the beechwoods to while away the hours between my planned and actual arrival times.
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