Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Snow: the Deception

I am now 16 and I have never seen snow before in my life. Well that used to be true until I signed up for a hike in the Parynese Mountain Range. The section of Comino de Comp Estella which is a religious pilgrimage to Comp Estella de Santiago in Spain, we started in Biarritz in France and did about the first 3 days of hiking. On the first day we had to hike over the top of a mountain, unfortunately it was 1400 meters up so when it rained on the way up it was freezing. Once we got to the top it was sort of level and we began to walk over the top. Unfortunately for me I only had 2 windbreakers and a disposable poncho when it started to rain again, or at least that’s what I thought. Only when I realized that it hurt when it hit me that it was snow, and this wasn’t nice fluffy snow it was razor sharp shards of ice like snow. To make things worse for me the wind was blowing extremely hard, and while everyone had anticipated this I was COLD and WET and MISERSBLE. My opinion on snow that I have finally seen it is that it SUCKS!!!!! And all the TV shows it make seem all nice and cool but in reality it is freezing cold, it hurts, and it officially sucks!

2 comments:

Sil said...

Hello Dakota,
The section in the Pyrenees from St Jean Pied de Port is very beautiful but can be cold, wet and foggy!
The pilgrimage is called "el Camino de Santiago de Compostela"
It means: "The Way to St James at Compostela". 'Camino' is derived from the Spanish word 'caminar' to walk: Sant' Iago is Saint James and Compostela can mean burial place or field of stars or even 'well founded'. Linguists argue for the different interpretations.
I don't think I would care to hike the camino in snow!
Pilgrim hugs,
Sil

Anonymous said...

I have never experienced that type of snow, but it does sound awful! I am glad that you had the opportunity to do something so amazing! It's nice to see you blogging again. I hope you are more prepared for your next big adventure!
Love you!