After two days snow shoe practice on the hills around Luchon - one day walk from Benque (complete whiteout) and a second from Artigue (great weather), left La feniere (the mountain lodge) to cross over into Spain for three days walking!  Including a circular route from the Ref. de Colomers back to it via an overnight stay at the ref. de ventosa.

Great weather and great walking, snow under foot was icy (but at least trail breaking was not too hard as we did not sink too far into the snow).  The walks included some decent ascents, some fun descents and a few lake crossings!

If you have never been into the Pyrenees I recommend it 100%.

Guipúzcoa (Spanish) or Gipuzkoa (Basque) is a province of the Basque Country, in Spain. That's the name of the smallest province in Spain, which bordered with the Pyrenees. The capital is San Sebastian. We stopped at a small village - or maybe, even not deserved to be aclled a village since it was only 1 small shops selling basic groceries and local harvest and also gasoline stop. One funny story happened here.. Frank, a classmate from China, was desperately looking for a present for his girlfriend back home, which he found a nice looking leather bag in this remote shop. He, galdly bought it, with a happy feeling that one task is over... Just to found in the next morning that the label of the bag has "Made in China" written in it:)

Pyrenees is a string of mountain in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between French and Spain. The origin of the name came from Greek Myth : Pyrene (fire in Greek) who is the daughter of Bebryx, she was raped by Heraklas and later on giving birth to serpent. Terrified, she fled to the mountain and nobody know what happenede later to her, either buried or eaten by wild animals.

(wikipedia source)

To my surprise when I saw mountain covered with snow, so white, so clean. It might be just like other winter day, but that was the first time for me to actually see and touch snow with my bare handsJ. It feels so cold like crushed ice, which usually we ate in hot day (there was one seller in front of my school, he crushed ice and pour colorful sugary syrup and it tastes heavenJ ).

We went for a trip to Pyrenees with classmates, stopped in the middle of the road to have a break and picnic basket. Went down to small creek and feel the freezy fresh water. Wandering round the hills and climb the rock.

Arriving at Spain in Guipuzcoa province, stopped to buy some strawberries and continued the trip to the ski resort.

The sky was so blue, indescribable blue, dark blue, bright blue, deep blue, contrasting with the whiteness of the snow and some dots of people afar playing in the resort.

On the way back we stopped at a small village and had a chance to take some pictures of the village church.