It started with a rock. A smooth, smug-looking one about the size of a melon, wedged just right under the moss at the edge of the path. I stepped on it. It wobbled like a drunk uncle. And in I went — left boot sucked straight into a patch of mud so deep and clingy it might’ve been training to be emotional support clay. I yanked. The mud yanked back. I cursed like I was trying to offend the mountain itself. Somewhere above, a crow gave what sounded like a sarcastic laugh. This wasn’t even the hard bit yet.
The ravine was just outside Torla-Ordesa — that teasing, jagged mouth between pine and sky where every trail looks like it’s painted in watercolour until you realise it wants your ankles. The plan (ha) was to follow the descending path into what some internet forum had vaguely called “a mild scramble.” Which is apparently Spanish for: “You’ll lose something. Maybe dignity.”
There was a moment — around ten minutes after Bootgate — when the path disappeared. Not in a metaphorical “you must find your own way” way. No. It literally disappeared under a mess of brambles, loose stones, and what might have been a broken sandal from a hiker past who did not make it out. I hesitated. Then I heard it. A soft trickle. Water. Somewhere down there, this ravine carried a stream. And maybe, possibly, a route out. I didn’t check the map. I didn’t want it to lie to me again.
Here’s where the ravine really showed teeth. The slope steepened into something that had to be navigated on all fours. I slipped twice, elbowed a sharp root that had it in for me, and slid a metre backwards into what can only be described as a small depression in the earth shaped precisely like my ass. I stayed there. Breathing. Listening. No signal. No people. Just wind, bird chirps, the distant rush of water… and my remaining boot making little wet noises like it missed its partner.
You ever talk to your gear? I do. Out loud, sometimes. “Stay with me,” I whispered to my sock. The descent went on. At some point, I started laughing. That slightly manic, nothing-is-real type of laugh you get when everything’s gone sideways but you’re too far in to turn back. The trees began to thin, revealing slices of rock wall that boxed in the valley like some ancient, accidental amphitheatre. And at the bottom, at last — the stream. Clear, cold, perfect. I dunked my socked foot into it, watching the mud dissolve like bad memories. Thought about that old man in Benasque last month who told me, “If the mountains don’t humble you, they’ll improvise.” I thought he was being poetic. I didn’t realise he meant literal boot-sucking improvisation.
Eventually I bushwhacked up the opposite side. The incline was cruel. My thighs screamed. At one point I think I hallucinated a goat giving me side-eye. But I made it. Socks ruined. Knees green. Boot retrieved. I stood there, panting, hands on hips like a hero returning from war. Then it started to rain. Of course it did. I looked back once — just once — at the ravine. It didn’t look like much. A crease in the land. Easy to miss. And yet. It nearly ate me.