Carros de Foc - day 4

Another long stage in hot weather. By day 4 everyone is usually "in the zone" and we made good steady progress to the first of today's 2 cols - Col de Monestero.

The final 200m are on steep loose shifting scree. Most people seem to do the Carros de Foc in the anti-clockwise direction (opposite to us) so there were quite a few people descending. A french lady dislodged a large stone about a metre across which slipped down the slope towards Ruby to shrieks of horror from the lady. It didn't slide far and Ruby kept her focus.

eE were planning on staying at the Refugi Colomina so to avoid all of us making the detour to the Refugi Josep Maria Blanc, Susie and Ruby stopped for lunch whilst Jasper and I without our rucksacks made a "fast and light" dash to the refuge and back. The sign said 50 minutes down and 1hr back - we did the round trip in 1hr 15. The setting is beautiful - a real shame we didn't stay there on our trip.

Ruby and Susie had pressed onto the Collado de Subaro but Jasper and I soon caught them up. The other side of the col is quite different, a granite moonscape devoid of vegetation and with many dams mostly holding back lakes which were as much as 30m below there full capacity!

After a couple of hours we finally reached the Refugi Colomina. Recently refurbished and very comfortable.