GR11 Day 8 Izabar to La Mina

 12th June

A perfect little hotel last night, the only slight snag was that they only do evening meals in the holiday season so I had to go to the bigger hotel down the road.

Izabar is obviously busy during the holidays and winter skiing as there are loads of places to stay. It's a typical Pryanese village with it's tiny cobbled streets and style of building.

Leaving the village past it's own little hydro-elctric plant there is a little shrine to help you on the way.

Track junction to decide on the GR11 or GR11.4

I got to the junction where the decision had to be made about doing the high route and two other walkers arrived, one from Holland the other from Majorca.

Along the track

They were taking the lower route and having looked at the cloud level and reading the bit about scrambling on potentially wet limestone I decided to do the same.

Collau d'Arguibiela 

We passed each other several times on the way up to the Collau d'Arguibiela (1295m) where I left Navarre and entered Aragón with it's mainly limestone 'alpine' terrain.

Wow

Stopped for lunch at Zuria which was as far as I thought of going but it was far too early to stop.

Climbed up through the most amazing scenery in perfect weather, not too hot with a bit of cloud to keep the sun off.

I met two people coming down and was able to understand that there was no snow on the pass.

The first time above the tree line as I climbed up through the rough limestone to the Cuello Petraficha at 1964m.

Sandstone at the top

The last little climb and most of the descent was sandstone, strange seeing the other side was all limestone. I saw my first Chamois and Marmots, the marmots have an incredibly loud alarm 'whistle'.

Descended all the way to the river at La Mina to find a no camping sign near where I intended to stop just as it started to rain.

I carried on up the river looking for somewhere suitable and noticed a little 'island' where the river divided, perfect!

The guide book says that this valley probably has the densest population of cows in the Pryenese and by the noise of all the bells I can quite believe it! I found out why my pack felt good today, it was lighter.... I had left my toothbrush in the hotel.