First day on the Camino

We walked what is considered a half stage today, but it was actually farther than I've walked on the first day on the Camino Francés. This is the "crossing the Pyrenees" stage. While the terrain isn't difficult (it's actually foothills of the Pyrenees and most of the walking is on a paved road), it is very steep. The first five miles is the steepest section on the entire Camino Francés.

In the past I've split this section by spending the night at Refuge Orisson which was the only hostel between St Jean Pied de Port in France and Roncesvalles in Spain. There is now another hostel one kilometer up the road, but my walking companions weren't keen on sleeping in bunk beds so we chose to use a service that picked us up when we reached the halfway point of this stage - about 7.5 miles.

The day started out drizzly, but the walk was fairly dry until we reached Orisson where we stopped for lunch before continuing for 3 more miles. After a bowl of delicious vegetable soup we set out again for about another hour or so of walking until we reached our pick up point. Then it started to rain - lightly at first and we all put on our ponchos and deployed our handsfree hiking umbrellas. It wasn't long before we were in a torrential downpour with some hail mixed in. I also heard some thunder rumbling in the distance, and I thought of my umbrella and poles - the umbrella has a fiberglass shaft and ribs, and the piles are carbon fiber, so I was hoping that they wouldn't make me a lightning rod! Fortunately, I didn't see any lightning - in fact I couldn't see much at all at this point due to the mist that formed up in the mountains. Thankfully, the shuttle service sent the van up early because of the worsening weather and I arrived at the meeting point just as he got there. The others were behind me, and very happy to see a warm, dry van waiting for them.

As is typical of days like this when we got back to town the skies cleared and it was beautiful!

Until the rain really started the views were stunning, and I regret not taking more pictures.

In the afternoon we walked around a bit more in St Jean which is an interesting old walled Basque town before heading to dinner.

Tomorrow we will take the shuttle back to where we left off - hopefully it will be a lot dryer!Read more