HexaTrek Tales Part 8: The Eastern Pyrenees, Stage Five, and Beginning Again

I stared at the patchwork of everything before me. Crimson autumn blueberry bushes, egg yolk blades of grass, pastel moss blanketing the mountains. Even the rocks couldn’t decide what color they were, sporting fluro greens, flesh tint splotches, and bruised growths. And the water, the water touched everything it could. Lakes returned the sun’s gaze with a deep navy blue; river reeds flowed like hair in the current.

I didn’t want it to be too much, but in a way it was. No matter how long I stood there, I knew I’d never be able to absorb it all — let alone process it; everything I was seeing and feeling and thinking.

It was the kind of beauty that hurt. 

It was the kind of awe that felt like an overdose. 

It was the kind of place that burns itself into your heart.

It was the Pyrenees.

Stage 5 of the HexaTrek — The Eastern Pyrenees — has come to an end. 

This past stage has perhaps been my favorite so far. The views have been expansive, the mountains have been wild, and the trail has been brimming with diversity. ‘Complete’ is how I’d describe the past three weeks and 532 kilometers.  

The trail has had everything. Rocky passes with nothing but the occasional dab of paint to guide the way. Forests coated in ferns, moss, pines, and mushrooms. Star-filled skies and breathtaking sunrises. Days in the clouds, and those so clear you can make out every autumn-flushed leaf. There’s been snow and rain, sun and swimming, chamois and stags, marmottes and lizards and snakes. There’s even been diversity in country, with the trail weaving back and forth between France, Andorra, and Spain. 

Maybe it’s in the colors. Maybe it’s in the extremes. Maybe it’s in whatever has made this section of trail feel so wild. Whatever it is — there’s something about the Pyrenees that feels deeply like home.

I decided to begin again in Stage Five.

Our internal pedometer can create a lot of baggage on a long hike. It’s not just, “I’m walking 30 kilometers today”, it’s “I’m walking 30 kilometers today AND I’ve already walked 2000 kilometers before that”. Sometimes it wasn’t the kilometers that were making me tired, it was the story that I’d done those kilometers that was making me tired.

It’s also inevitable that we habituate to every aspect of trail life, even the profound beauty along the way. It takes more to impress us — to prompt an intake of breath when we reach a pass, a moment of appreciation in a lush forest, the childish feeling of delight when we hear the music of wild animals. As the months pass, it gets harder to remember how deeply incredible and unique this adventure is. 

In the days before Stage Five, I thought a lot about how we hold onto the fatigue and habituate to the beauty. What if, I wondered, I just began again? 

What if I imagined those first steps out of Carcassonne and into Stage Five were the first steps I was taking on the HexaTrek? What if I convinced myself this was a new hike, that I’d come to France just to hike the Pyrenees? What if I was doing everything for the first time again: buying my first resupply, taking my first zero, eating my first wild blueberry? What if I let go of the hundreds of thousands of steps I’d taken in the three months prior? What if I loosened my grip on how I was meant to feel after two thousand kilometers, and just felt it?

Sam Harris, a philosopher, neuroscientist, and meditation teacher, talks about this idea of beginning again. Nineteen minutes into a twenty minute meditation, he’ll often ask you to begin again; imagine it’s the first minute you’ve sat down to meditate. Approach the task with a fresh, invigorated mind. Drop your attachment to the nineteen minutes you’ve meditated before that one. Just begin again.

And so, that is what I tried to do. 

I’ve reflected a lot on my mindset toward this hike, and I think this is one of the most pivotal shifts I’ve made. While my body obviously isn’t going to forget the past months anytime soon (the scars and tan lines are markers of that), I no longer feel like the memory of them is weighing me down. My mind feels fresh, my capacity for awe replenished, and my eyes wide open. I could easily be convinced that I’ve just been walking for a week or two. I’ve begun again, and what a place to do it. 

Stage Five also marked the beginning of The Pyrenees Party. 

After months of solitude on trail, I’ve finally found some friends. Wow, I know. The addition of company, two French Hexatrekkers, has rendered this a completely different hike. Despite the Pyrenees being the most physically intense section of trail, it feels almost like a vacation to me. My mood is consistently higher, I worry about very little, town visits are a hundred times more fun, and I’m laughing a ridiculous amount.

This trail has taught me a lot about the importance of connection. It’s an incredible thing to be able to say to someone, “Gosh, isn’t that a nice mountain?” or “I really don’t want to walk today” or “Have you ever thought about how good the word ‘password’ is?”. An analogy keeps coming to mind — one that’s very relevant on a trail where farm animals often roam… If you’re going to walk through shit, you might as well do it with someone and laugh about what a ridiculous amount of shit there is.

The Pyrenees Party.

Being able to share the highs and lows, the beautiful and ugly, the random thoughts and observations — it makes the trail, and life, more colorful. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about time passing, too.

On a thru-hike, you’re not just traversing a country, you’re observing the passage of time. The months go by and they change you and the land and one day you realize that both are entirely different from when you took that first step.

We watch it all change. Rain is replaced by sun which is replaced by storms which is replaced by snow. The leaves turn from vibrant green to yellow to orange to crimson and brown. The blueberry bushes are bare and then there they are; underripe, ripe, overripe, gone. We feel our bodies change form, our minds shift with simplicity, and our hearts tumble into love with the nature around us. We make friends with strangers, and the stranger parts of ourselves. 

From rain to sun to storms to snow.

When you go walking for months on end, you watch the world around you change, and you feel yourself do the same. Time makes its imprint, and it’s such an astounding and incomprehensible thing to witness.  

I think I might actually finish this thing. 

There was one day in Stage Five when I thought, for the first time on this hike, that I might actually walk this whole thing. My mindset has shifted from, ‘I don’t want to think about finishing because I don’t want to commit to it’ to, ‘I don’t want to think about finishing because I don’t want to finish’. 

What’s changed? Being in the Pyrenees, having friends, and probably some fear of the unknown that comes after. 

There is a part of me, deep inside, that is reserved for the mountains. And when I’m with them, well, that part is deeply happy. In the Alps, I realized just how much I loved this trail. In the Pyrenees, I realized just how badly I didn’t want to leave it.

So, onto Stage Six I go. I’ve walked over 2500 kilometers and the vast majority of the HexaTrek. That seems, to me, like the perfect time to begin again.