Balaitús - 3144m

Left: the Costillerou ridge - right: Devil's ridge

Last week, Xavi and me did some mountaineering in the Balaitús area, the most western zone of the Pyrenees where 3000m summits are to be found. Our idea was to do as many of those summits as possible and we even foresaw to try us at a ridge that includes the Torre de Costillerou, which has the fame to be the most difficult 3000m summit of the whole Pyrenees. But as always, it turned out that there's a gap between what we'd like to do and what we're actually capable of ... click here to read on

 We left Manresa on Wednesday after work, had dinner in Saviñánigo and reached the parking at the far side of the barrier lake of La Sarra at about half past 10. There, we planted our tent and due to the hypnotic sound of the gurgling Gallego river, a profound slumber soon took over.

According to Xavi, that's the way most females approach him

Thursday, at about 7 am we started to drag our heavy loads up the path that leads to the Respomuso mountain hut. Instead of the 2.5 hours that were indicated on a sign at the starting point, it took us around 3 hours to reach what would be our basecamp for the two days to follow. The refuge, by the way, is quite luxury and counts with a hot shower on each room.     

Respomuso barrier lake and mountain hut

Last obstacle before reaching the hut

After our check-in we decided to go and explore the way to a summit called Frondella Occidental (the most western of the 3000m summits), maybe, we thought, we even could climb it before having to return for dinner. In the vicinity of the refuge we discovered some interesting stairs which seemed to form part of a former mining complex.

Stairs and caution

The path to take was one that first retraces the way down to the parking and then branches to the so called Arriel lakes. We didn't find the branch though and hence went back down far too far. When we noticed our mistake we almost were half back at the car.

Bildunterschrift hinzufügen

After heading up again, we finally arrived at the lakes about an hour and half later than previously expected, just when the weather was about to change and some raindrops started to fall. After a short break at the lakes we decided to call it a day and return to the refuge.

Tiny flower - photo taken in microscope mode

We shared our dinner with Arnau, a guy from Barcelona who did the GR11, a path that follows the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea. A very sympathetic and interesting fellow!

Torre Costillerou and Aguja Ussel

Access to the Latour gap

Climbing the gap

Next day we wanted to try the Costillerou ridge and had breakfast at 6 o'clock. Together with four more mountaineers that wanted to climb Balaitús through the the Latour gap, we made our way up the slopes. Close to the gap Xavi and me diverged to the right and after a total of some 2.5 hours we were close to a chimney that goes up a peak callled Aguja Ussell. Xavi was keen, but I felt more than just slightly intimidated by it's aspect, inclination and mixed terrain. 

We went a little further in order to find an easier access, but since this would have meant to make a longer stretch of the ridge and spending more time on it, we soon decided to draw back and directly attack the Balaitús summit - also through the Latour gap. When we arrived at the gap, the other four mountaineers already had abandoned their intents without any success. After the crossing of a small crevasse, I was able to access the chimney that goes up the Latour gap, but once at its narrowest point, there was a small snow bridge that had collapsed. Here we decided to mutually secure us staticly - as if climbing. An interesting while later we had managed to negotiate the problems. Now, the rock wall to our right offered some steel dowels that allowed to climb it without any major difficulties and soon we were walking again, rather than climbing.

First view of the pyramide that marks Balaitús' summit

A final ascend on a rather thick snow layer soon placed us on the summit, that surprisingly was snow-free. By now, it was 2pm.

Balaitús - 3144m, not one of the easiest accessible summits

Our way back was through the Latour gap, again. By means of three rappels of aproximately 50m each, we made it down through the chimney again.

First rappel

Last rappel

Having negotiated  the last of technical difficulties, we stuffed the ropes into our backpacks and started our way down. A continuous rumble indicated that the meteorological conditions were about to change.

Just when we reached the refuge it started to rain. At that moment we didn't imagine that we were very happy: had we returned only minutes later, we would have found us in the middle of a full grown thunderstorm with heavy rainfall and, maybe worse, furios hailing.

Xavi during the second rappel

After two days of quite intense activity, on Saturday we decided to take things a little easier. Our plan foresaw to once again approach Frondella Occidental. This time we were sure we would find the correct path right from the start. Since we would initiate our descend after that climb, we'd do the check out in the morning hours and take all our stuff with us to the Arriel lakes where we would deposit it during our ascend. This way, we wouldn't have to return to the hut afterwards and could take an alternative way down to La Sarra, where the car was parked. We had breakfast at 7am and started our walk an hour later.

A last view back to the Respomuso Hut

Fire Salamander

It seems that the rainfall the day before had had an activating affect on the local population of fire salamanders, for within an hour's walk, we encounterd five of them in the middlle of our path.

And up again

Soon after the Arriel lakes we put on our crampons and started the ascend of a rather long snow slope. When we passed under the Frondella Occidental peak, the decision was taken to continue a little more and to climb the Central Frondella peak first. At its base we put off our crampons, sipped some water and let all our stuff behind in order to lighten our load as much as possible. A final effort deposited us on on the Central peak at 3055m. From there, we had easy access to all the other Frondella peaks except the Occidental, but since there are actually more peaks in the real ridge than those 3 official summits mentioned in our book, we had to climb every single one of them in order to make sure not to leave any official summit unclimbed. The last one we summited was the Frondella North, which is easy to recognize, because there's a kind of monument on it's top, composed of an ice axe and sort of a metal tin.

Frondella Nord - 3062m

When we arrived at the point where our crampons were deposited, we decided that we'd had enough. Instead of climbing the Frondella Occidental, we'd directly head down to the Arriel lakes, load our stuff and begin the retreat.

View from a point close to the lowest Arriel lake

Some hours later, this decision would turn out to be a very good one, because some 20 minutes before we reached the car it started to rain. At this point we felt very tired and exhausted from our three days in the Balaitús area.

A last note about the prices in the Respomuso hut:

For members of the Spanish Mountain Federation (FEDME) a night costs 9.70€, dinner comes for 13.50€ and a breakfast accounts for 5.00€. For non-members, and that includes those of the Catalan Mountain Federation FEEC, the prices are 16.30€, 15.70€ and 5.60€ respectively. A beer costs the same for everyone and comes at 4.50 for half a litre.