For the first time in months if not years, I had ten hours of solid sleep. Ten hours! It felt so good. Talking of the forecast begins to bore me, but it’s not insignificant. Light rain at the moment and thunderstorm and sun around 2 pm. I’m not sure how the latter two can be combined. There is GR11 shortcut that bypasses Balneario, so I could go down that way and then come back via Casa de Piedra like I did before. However, there is another path that goes up to the mountains, around Ibon de Yuans and back down to the Bachimaña lake. I take a chance… When I leave GR11, I also stop seeing my guides: white and red signposts, but at least initially the path is well visible. That ‘initially’ didn’t last long, though, all about it in a moment. Just before the path started to disappear, I had this in front of me and in a silly way it excited me.

This wall wasn’t massive or difficult, but it was a bit of free climbing. No, I don’t do free climbing in the proper sense of this term, but just the fact that I had to hold on to this rock, use both hands and feet just gave me a bit of silly pleasure. The trekking poles were a bit of a pain here, but I managed.

I come from civilised Eastern Europe 😉 where trails are well marked even in winter. Only when I moved to the UK, I’ve learned that a pile of stones might actually mark the path. I didn’t know the word ‘cairn’ till I listened to The Outlander a few years ago. There’s something fascinating about Scottish Gaelic, but that’s a digression. Places like this make wonder which of those cairns are human work and are signposts and which are a randomly accumulated loose rocks.

This ended up being another valuable insight. Perhaps, one of the most important of this or even all my trips. When that path stopped being so visible, I was looking out for those cairns and had to look around to find them. Then, the rocks around me got bigger, cairns if there where any, got smaller and smaller and soon disappeared. When I looked around, all the rocks looked the same. If anything looked like a path, there was no way really to say if it is one or if it’s just my imagination or wishful thinking. It didn’t worry me. If anything, it would be frustrating, but even then not much. Not on this occasion. I thought that I had a map, I had a compass and I knew roughly where I was going. It’s just that when you are walking on a massive pile of massive rocks, it’s impossible to estimate how far and how high you need to go. The distances are so deceiving.

Of course, this entire theme made me think of discernment in life and finding a path, not to mention the right path in life. Until this moment, finding that way was my endless frustration. I wasn’t in a hurry and the sun was out (not the slightest sign of a thunderstorm), so I just climbed slowly without a path. I felt surprisingly good about it. Not seeing the path or the path not being there at all doesn’t mean that you are lost or that you don’t know what you are doing. Even not knowing where you are doesn’t necessarily mean that you are lost. In a literal sense, these things never really worried me, but in a metaphorical sense not knowing where I was going had been unsettling most of the time until now. Walking on this odd and a bit moonlike landscape finally brought peace. There isn’t a soul around me. No messages because there’s no signal. I don’t even hear all those lovely people singing in my ears because I forgot my headphones, but I know that I’m not alone. I appreciate and I’m grateful for this solitude. This might just be an oxymoron 🤔 Never mind, you know what I mean.

I can sense a shift in my mind and in my heart. In fact, not just a shift, a complete transformation. It’s like with each step this searching for a path is changing my lifelong frustration to excitement and joy and adventure. Again, I’m talking in that metaphorical sense. Suddenly, not seeing the whole route or not having a path and only roughly knowing the direction stopped being an issue. For my entire life I’ve been asking God what He wanted me to do and to show me the way (I know that He is the Way, but let’s park that for a moment). I never put it in words like this, but I think I wanted a map. In whatever shape or form – GPS? Google Maps? Printed map? I remember when I was in my late teens or early twenties they started making those laminated maps. You have no idea how exciting it was that you could open the entire map in the rain or snow and it didn’t get ruined in a matter of minutes. Anyway, I wanted God to draw me a route with clearly marked turns, crossroads, bridges, mountains – you name it – and I would be more than happy with a worn-out printed copy… Oh, and I forgot to mention that our lovely maps, laminated or not, have every section of the trail timed – quite accurately. Can I have that included, please? Of course, He doesn’t work like that. I discovered that many years ago, even though I found very difficult to accept it and live with it, that a discernment is like walking with a torch or a candle if you want it to be more atmospheric. When you walk with a torch, you only see what is right in front of you. Sometimes, it’s one step, sometimes five, depending on how strong the light is and unless you take a step, then another and another, you will never see what’s further ahead of you. Sometimes, you see the road with those cat eyes lighting up as you approach or a runway with landing lights, but that’s still only a part of your way. It’s one step at a time and I’m finally at peace with it.

Going back to my walk, I finally saw the lake where I was supposed to get. There was a mountain rising on the other side of that lake and according to my map the trail – the one that’s long gone – was circling the lake. Against my better judgment, I went that way. I guess that I just wanted to check or prove that the author of my map was wrong all along. I found one cairn, though, that someone clearly made for fun. Talking of my map, later it turned out that the map on the wall in the refuge was a different one the trails leading to this lake were in different places. My gut instinct at this point was absolutely correct (not for the first time…), but I had a different map. It makes me think: who do you follow?

When I passed the lake, there was a trail. More than one, in fact, but it didn’t really matter. They all would take me down to Bramatuero lake (the one with the ‘dam it dam’). The walk down was just so relaxing. I don’t think that my knees reminded me of their existence at all. I was full of energy. At that point I missed having my camera. I’m still not sure whether there were mountain goats or deer. It’s just impossible to tell from the photos and either was possible. I stood there for a while and just watched them.

When I got to the dam, I crossed the stream. On this side it wasn’t a problem at all. I wanted to look at the tower that I saw a couple of days ago. I didn’t have a clue what it was. I thought that it might have been some kind of shelter, but it would be a very weird one. The curiosity got the better of me and I climbed up the ladder. It wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but I looked inside and was none the wiser.

I asked the chap from the refuge – another Mario it turned out. Apparently, all the dams here (I’ve seen at least three) are connected and remotely controlled, so they can be closed or opened at anytime. Through that tower they can get into that particular dam and also bring inside some heavy machinery if any work needs to be done inside. For those last three days he didn’t seem to be very talkative, but once he started talking, I asked him about the electricity in the refuge. There is a little hut on the lake right by the dam right outside and I thought that might be a small hydroelectric power station. I wasn’t wrong. When he started talking about it, his face simply brightened. We went outside, so he could show me what he was talking about. It was their own power station and he was very proud (and rightly so!) that all their electricity comes from there. I found the subject fascinating and while I asked him how they managed in winter, I thought that I’d love to come here and see this place covered with snow.

On the mountain the Lord will provide.