Val d’Aran

After our inability to locate a drivable road up to the car park for the mines the other day, this time we had done our homework. There is a paved road for which you don’t need to drive a 4x4, but you need to approach the turn off from the Arres de Sus road from the opposite direction to our previous attempt - because the turning is otherwise hard to spot and impossible to turn into.

Coming the other way this morning, we turned on to the single car width, tarmac road which led higher and higher up the side of the mountain. Mostly, there was a sheer drop on one side of the road and an almost vertical mountainside on the other. I was very relieved not to meet anyone coming down as there were few places wide enough to allow two cars to pass.

After 2.5 km we arrived at Bassa d’Arres, and the car park. From here we had a 30-45 minute walk down the mountain to find the first of several waypoints with something to look at and an information board to explain the background to this former zinc sulphide mine. The leaflet said there would be an hour or so walk around the various stooping points, returning to the car park.

The Victoria Mines were one of a number opened in the valley from the end of the 19th century, this mine starting in the early 1900s and becoming fully operational in 1912. In the same year, an ore washing plant opened in Bossost, the village on the valley floor below the mine.

In its hay day, the mine extracted around 80 tons of ore a day. A complex system of cable cars, inclined planes and “balanced scales” were used to transport the ore down to Bossost and the washing plant. The balanced scales were a little like an aerial version of an inclined plane where the weight of a full load descending pulls up the next empty container, and so on.

About 100-150 lived and worked at the mine, in order to keep it operational 24 hours a day. Women and children were employed mostly in the ore washing plant. Digging was initially by pick and shovel but later there was a machine house with a compressor to power pneumatic drilling.

However, by the 1930s the zinc prices had fallen to the point that the cost of extraction and washing was becoming uneconomical, and there was also now a shortage of labour. For part of the 1930s, the mine stopped extraction whilst the washing plant continued to process the stocked up ore. The mine working was suspended at the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, but reopened in 1948. However, the mine finally closed in 1953.

Aside from the need to use Google Translate to decipher the information panels in Aranese, Catalan and Spanish, it was an interesting self-guided walk around the various sites, all of which were in the beautiful setting, being halfway up the mountainside. It was also great that we were mostly in the shade from the otherwise hot sun.

However there was a pretty steep climb, at points on a very narrow path, with sheer drop. The local council is in the process of installing new fencing in some of the most challenging parts of the path, but this appears to be a work in progress, with regular piles of fencing poles and handrails waiting to be installed!

We returned the short distance to the campsite for lunch, followed by a relaxing swim in the pool and a restful afternoon trying to stay in the shade.Read more