We're warriors, we're soldiers, ouch, my ankle

The story of our camping trip.

B and I have begun hiking since we've been in the Pyrénées. In June we went on an overnight hike with a group of 10 people and stayed in a mountain lodge (un refuge). Adventurous as we are (!), we invited some friends and a brother to hike up to a lake we went to in May but to stay overnight this time. B's birthday was in early July and his friends gave him a great hiking backpack.

Last Thursday B and I went to Decathlon to get the rest of the equipment we needed. I got a sleeping bag, we picked up one of those 2-second tents, and then B started talking about buying an inflatable mattress.
"That's for having guests in your house!" I said.
"But I have a bad back. I need comfort," he responded. Time to find a salesman to ask his opinion.
"So, you're going hiking and then camping?" he asked. "That 2-second tent is no good. How are you going to carry it? It's for camping in a campground." Well, that answered my question as to how we were going to get up the mountain with a huge round thing.
We picked out a small, two person tent meant to be attached to a backpack. Triple the price of the 2-second tent though....
"Now, I think these nice comfy inflatable mattresses are great for camping," B starts, "but she doesn't think they're right for our trip."
"Well, problem is, you're not going to be able to fold it any smaller than what it is now in the box," the salesman explains. Note that the box will take up a third of the camping backpack.
"You're better off buying a thin self-inflating camping mattress or two of those foam pads you can put together."
B and I analyze: the budget's been zapped by the hugely expensive tent, so a mattress pad at 27€ seems expensive. Two foam pads together is only 15€. We go for the less expensive. After all, we're young, our backs will recover.

Friday night our friends and B's brother arrived, but B stayed up late reading pirated Harry Potter (read the other post). Saturday morning we got up about 9:30 and start shuffling everyone through the shower, careful to save the hot water because it only reheats during the night. Some quick grocery shopping, then a little barbecue lunch (the cats came by of course), and we packed up our stuff.

Some rain started to fall during lunch time though, and by the time we got to the village parking lot a half hour from town, we were in the middle of a thunder and lightening storm. Caroline had a special hiking poncho that covers her sack as well, and we all got a huge laugh when she put it on. It was practical, put it also made her look like a hunchbacked muppet character from a Jim Henson movie. When a bolt hit the mountain across from us and the thunder boomed instantaneously, we decided to get back in the car and eat some of the cookies we'd brought.

After 5 minutes in the cars in the parking lot, we agreed to check out a nearby castle instead of heading home. We drove over, parked, noticed that the sky was clearing, petted a friendly cat that decided to follow us, then learned that is was 6€50 to watch the eagle show at the castle and that we couldn't visit the ruins for free. There was more and more blue sky by this point though, so we got back in our two cars, and went back to the trail head.

The hike up wasn't too bad. We took breaks to drink and take off our packs and let J-B, B's brother, catch his breath. J-B'll be 30 soon, so B made lots of jokes about "pépé" (grandpa). B complained about being tired since he stayed up late reading the fake Harry Potter. He kept cursing whoever'd written the fan fiction.

We arrived at the high altitude lake just before 8pm and picked out our camping site. We filmed J-B throwing his tent in the air and it popping into form (it really only took 2 seconds). B and I tried to figure out the wordless instructions for our tent. Julien, one of our friends, used the foot pump to inflate the inflatable mattress J-B had brought to share with him ("See," B says, "J-B has a comfy inflatable mattress.").

When we were finished, we realized that J-B put the side of his tent directly in front of the entrance to Mathieu and Caroline's tent. J-B staunchly defended his tent location because it faced the fire. This actually didn't really change anything, as I will describe the fire.

The Quest for Fire
There was a circle of rocks next to our encampment that had been previously used for a fire. In our folly, we decided that it was too wet from the earlier thunder storm, and it would be infinitely better to make a new fire ring. Julien bought a box of 40 matches from a Tabac right before we left for the hike because none of us smoke so none of us had a lighter. With a few stones re-arranged, we tried to gather some twigs and any wood around. We tore up the box to some cookies we'd eaten, plus made some little bundles of TP, and inter-stacked what we had. Mathieu and Julien brought back some branches they found, and B took out the first match.

He strikes, it burns, the wind blows it out.

39 matches.

Most of the wood we found was damp from the thunder storm, and in the middle of summer, it's hard to find wood that isn't green. There was barely any dried grass; everything was really green. We wasted quite a few matches trying to light the TP on fire (it just kind of smoldered and then went out). Then we got brilliant and took off all the huge logs and big sticks and concentrated on some twigs sandwiching a tissue. A small flame, then another twig began to burn, then we blew through some space between two rocks to give air to the underside of the fire, then we dragged some more rocks over the protect the fire from the wind, then we added a medium sized stick, and we had a fire!

Making a fire makes an expert out of everyone I think. J-B really got into to the part and directed us to add twigs on the left, then the right, and blow through the crack, and stop, and add some twigs. We had a respectable fire for about 2 hours. B used an extra tent stake to roast marshmallows. We put our socks and shoes next to the fire and on some iron sheeting we found and used to protect the fire from the wind in a kind of tent structure. It was probably 9:30 before we were able to relax and eat our sandwiches and hardboiled eggs (yum, hiking cuisine). When it got dark we goofed around with the flashlights and took pictures holding them under our chins. Caroline was trying to get a pictures of all the guys and told Julien to stop kneeling, but the problem was just that Julien is much shorter than the rest of the guys. Everyone had a good laugh at that.

Between 10:30 and 11pm we cleaned up and got ready for bed. Once everyone was zippered in their tent and trying to get comfortable, J-B called out, "Oh, I'm so comfy on my air-mattress. So glad I'm not sleeping on a foam pad!"
"Enculé!" (Damn you) B called back to his brother.
Turns out those economy foam pads weren't as comfy as I thought they would be. Poor J-B forgot his polar fleece though, so he said he didn't sleep well because he was cold all night. Julien said J-B did get some sleep though because he snored.

We had brioche suisse for breakfast (Swiss pastry) and packed up about 10am. No one was thrilled to put the same grubby shoes back on, or our packs, but just after leaving the lake we came to a great vantage point where we could see the Pyrénées chain and the valley below was covered in picturesque clouds. It was really beautiful to see the blanket of white so far below and then the mighty mountains rising. A little later we noticed the line of camping cars on a mountain across the way: people waiting for the Tour de France to come by.

We decided to go to Buffalo Grill afterwards because we'd eaten there really well before as a group and we didn't want to shop or cook. I don't know what it was, but it was really bad at Buffalo Grill. B ordered a salad that was really expensive, then he and Julien ordered the same fruit salad desert only to discover that for 40 centimes more, they could have had more fruit plus ice cream and sauce. My chili con carne was mediocre. The apple crumble was good except for some sugar they burned on the top. I don't think we'll go back for a while. Or if we do, we'll have to stop experimenting with the menu and order the things we know are good.

Btw, I learned while at Buffalo Grill that steak Tartare is a raw steak. Is this really true? How can anyone eat completely raw steak? I was troubled by this finding.

So that's the hiking trip! Some good memories, good laughs, and sore muscles the day after!