In their rooms it never got dark. The hours made noises and the noises, impatience. you wanted to sleep and, at the same time, get up as soon as possible because the doze was crossed by flashlight beams, footsteps of boots that shook the silence and the metallic clash of crampons and ice axes. When it was still time to bed, Some began to get up, a rosary that was no longer interrupted. They heard cough, Carraspeos, Sonora PERSITITIES, guttural snoring that seemed to announce the apocalypse. And you there, curled up inside the bag, Surrounded by adults in the literas of Somier Corrido, You were afraid of the darkness that stalked, of the top that awaited more than three thousand meters.
The Goriz shelter, one of the most legendary of the Pyrenees, if not the most, It is anchored in the Hondón of my mountaineer memories. Spend (Sleeping did not happen to be a euphemism) path MONTE LOST (3.355 meters) It was a kind of doctoral in mountain, The sublimation of this incipient child hobby for the summits. Leave behind Cola de Caballo, Where most put the end to the walk from the Ordesa meadow, It meant, neither more nor less, go from hiker to Montañero.
Spending one night was a kind of doctorate in mountain, The sublimation of this incipient child hobby for the summits
The sun slips down the slopes where the Pelay belt, and El Zig saw que, curb the curve, It takes you away from the waterfall and elevates you on the majestic Canyon of Ordesa. Saved that unevenness, The path continues to gain height without shock, Although the shelter hides almost until you have it on top, As if a sudden enchantment had faded to test the patience of the walker.
And 1979, When I came there for the first time, It cost to spend the night, I remember, 150 pitty (less than a euro) With breakfast included. Tony was then the shelter guard, the man whom everyone asked for advice on weather conditions, the state of the dreaded spit or this or that route. He was a mountain tanned by a life 2.200 meters of altitude and exercised with their steely answers and gesture economy. Or maybe I was too accustomed to always listening to the same questions. For a child like me, His figure was enhanced with the same forcefulness as the depth of the landscape, that it became colossal as the day declined, Filling the Ordesa cannon with shadows.
The shelter hides almost until you have it on top, As if a sudden enchantment had faded
In Góriz I lived that summer my first mountaineer frustration when, After a night without watch, The day woke up sullen and the elders judged prudent not to try the top. I still have a photo of that descent to the horse tail, With my disappointment in tow and my newly learned lesson, primordial and unforgettable: When the mountain says no, No.
We return the following year to Góriz. On that occasion, We spent the first night in tent at the foot of the waterfall, where we were surprised by a storm that in the dark accentuated further the sensation of adventure. It was one of those old heavy stores with capacity for two people in which we slept four aligned width. And that one of us, Vincent, He approached 1,90. There we take refuge from the flood. It seemed as if Jupiter himself was unloading all his artillery of rays and thunder over us. The next morning, The day granted a truce and we continued to Góriz, with whom I met as an old friend, without forgetting that we had a pending account to settle: get on the top of the lost.
The day faded by plunging all Góriz's guests in the solitude of our desires
We spend the day idle in the meadows surrounding the shelter, entering and leaving, Footwear with those rubber espadrilles with which it was mandatory to walk inside so as not to dirty the ground with the boots. And again the day faded down the slopes of the canyon with the same magic as the previous year, Suming all Góriz's guests in the solitude of our desires. The dinner at the wooden tables on the ground floor, With Tony distributing the beds to the most lagging mountaineers, It was a mere procedure waiting for a night that you already knew it was not night. And it wasn't. Identical choreography was repeated dotted with noise and successive awakenings in an endless search for the position in which the dream surprised you. Never arrived. Therefore, When my father shook my shoulder to lift me up, I was imagining the way to my lost.
I miss those hours in Góriz in which my father educated me in the mountain values
That time there was luck and we could make a summit. One year later, I returned to Góriz, On that occasion to reach the Casteret Caves and Rolando Gap. I almost felt at home at the shelter. The myth had become flesh and nurtured my memories. I didn't even sleep too much, but that was the least. Over the years, I have returned several times to Góriz, But I have not returned to sleep in the shelter, Now a stop to replace strength before facing the following section towards the top of the lost. And, truth, I miss those nights where my mountaineer spirit was forged, those hours in Góriz in which my father educated me in the values ??of the mountain, life itself. And someday, Insurance, I will try to transmit them to my children. Also in Góriz, The shelter where nights are always full moon.
