With the second day of 'the triad' upon us, we were restless early; the weather seemed once again to be in our favour, adding to impetus.'We can do it, today the mountain, tomorrow the world!' We set out across the dam to stalk round the cliffs at the east end and ascend steeply in the cold shadows, for which I was not optimally clad. Karen's problem was hunger and our anticipated breakfast at the col seemed a long way away; a quick halt corrected both problems.

  The rocky approach led to a glacier passage, but the shallow angle and absence of ice flows allowed us to tread the roughened surface with ease; overall, the route proved to be much less complex than that of the previous stage, and we soon gained Col inférieur de Litérola (2983m). This marks the frontier but there were no customs officers to check passage or even signs to confirm; just the towering peak Perdiguero (3222m) opposing its rival Pic des Crabioules (3116m) on the north side of the col. Splendid views opened up past Ibon Blanc as we overlooked cloud on the Spanish side; Voici! Karen commented that she had only ever experienced this perspective from an aeroplane. Today we were not alone, and one party had even arrived ahead of us, but we were not in a hurry now, wishing to breakfast at ease in the warm sun. We were enjoying our food more and more during the trek, as our appetites overtook our rationing; at no time did we ever fail to function well physically, but the repression got to us. It left at least Karen puzzled as to the source; 'His idea or a necessity, can't we just carry more?'

  I believe I was actually a little dissappointed that we had not encountered more glacier work, wondering if we would carry our ice axes the whole distance for nothing. With this in mind, I descended the short rocky headwall onto the vestigial east side glacier and encouraged Karen to follow me and learn self-arrest. 'There's little point in having an ice axe if you don't need it, but even less point in needing it without knowing how to use it!' Its hard to push yourself into demanding arrest situations, but some valuable experience was nevertheless gained. Karen_comments

  By now, another couple had arrived from Portillon, and stirred by their passage, we resumed course. They had set out ahead, taking a line which I considered was wasteful of effort; 'We can do better than that!' It was however far from clear cut, the terrain was as lumpy as toad-hide, mamelons everywhere. I got so absorbed in this micro-navigation during the next 2km that I lost sight of our overall direction; there was but the scantest trace of discontinuous passage, as we wound our way past crags, through ravines and scrambled boulder chokes. Thus it was that we made some considerable descent before I registered that our intended valley (La Remune) should not have a lake in it ...

  The thought of returning uphill was by then abhorrent, and we chose to continue down the Litérola, and accept the consequence of a roadwalk to regain the route proper. It was not an unpleasant valley, but I was seething at my loss of control; there had been no problem with visibility, the map, or any other external factor, it was simply my fault! and that made me squirm. 'To think how much misplaced energy I have with which to berate Karen for being slow, while my oversight has now cost us both time and effort!'

  The way was pleasant enough, wandering through vivid terracotta granite domes, ramps and screes, before joining a thoroughfare close to the river. During that descent, we surprised a few isards; they would bound away to stand ground and relay snorted warnings from a good vantage point. I by turn was surprised by a particular marmot, which whistled piercingly at point blank range. The problem which this furry brained quadraped had unwittingingly made for itself, was that it had installed its bolt hole right by the path. When I rounded the bend, it was grazing buttercups and gentians 10m away and must race towards me in order to escape! We approached the tree-line where we found birch and rowan initially, then pine, silver fir and box lower down. It was in this wood that I had a good sighting of a sizeable snake (1m length) which crossed the path just ahead. It was quite thick-set and featured the bold pattern of the viper, but left in too much hurry for me to check for those narrow pupil slits! I am therefore unable to say certainly whether it was a venemous viper or a gentle grass-snake.

  Emerging onto the main road, Banos de Benasque came into view on the opposite side of the valley; such a substantial building complex would surely harbour at least one shop? We were thinking about food again, but the gamble of diverting at such length discouraged us from pursuit of the goods. We walked together for a while, and I carried Karen's trekking poles; she had no need of them on tarmac and I felt guilty (I was guilty!), extending the stage after getting us lost. We distracted ourselves dicussing what we might find at Hospital de Benasque (some kind of hostelry) though we really had no right to such speculation. A booking had been lodged at Ref Renclusa for vegetarian meals, but we decided that we might well give in to comfort at the Hospital. This would make for an easier day as the refuge was both further away and 200m ascent higher. At the end of the chat, what had actually been concluded was that Karen would accept what was available at any cost, but that I would accept it only if I thought it represented good VFM; a time bomb ticking ...

  On arrival at the Hospital, we could see clearly that it was a posh hotel; I announced that I did not feel comfortable to stay there, especially as we had made the refuge booking. At this, Karen's temper flared white-hot, and after giving me a good mouthful, she resumed course speedily powered by wrath and rage. 'Now why can't she walk like this normally?' I thought but didn't dare ask! Karen_comments She was fatigued and it had been wrong for me to encourage the notion of staying there at all, so I formulated a proposal to pacify; we could quit our tent and take beds in the refuge. I also relieved her of some load before the ascent began. She continued in the same spirited huff, proving that her physical stamina was really quite sound.

  The ascent on footpaths finally took us away from tarmac, passing through a curious mixture of granite and limestone base rock which supported pine trees where the finches and titmice foraged. As it was under-going repairs, the refuge did not fit well into this unspoiled scenery, but inside it was clean and spacious. Adding fine irony to our wranglings, the warden knew nothing of our meal booking, but cheerfully allocated us bedspaces. He was thus unready to serve us vegetarian food, as he had already prepared a substantial maincourse, indivisible from its meat content. He further took occasion to admonish us on the need for 'a good (meat!) diet' as we were trekking and asked would the dinner be OK if he just picked the meat out?! Karen fielded this question, and after interpretation and indecision, it turned out we didn't really have a choice anyway! Not my preference, but the other dishes he prepared for us were great; salad, fish steaks, with peppers and fungi fried together. We got our value.

  At the dining table we met an exuberant ex-pat; I would never have seen through his imperfect Catalan, so was taken by surprise when he addressed me broadly 'Where are you from then mate?' He had been out of the UK for eight years, now leading a hectic life in the oil industry which had only given him four days off in the last two months. He had managed to escape from Britain ('its a pit ...') which just left him to escape the job, pursuing the hope of a quiet rural life somewhere in Lerida. 'No hope!' I thought after listening to him go on; he had quite a lifestyle to maintain, and took far too much fulfillment from his job ('they need me ...').

  Karen slunk away early from this cheerful banter; she was whipped from the days labours, and the remaining day of 'the triad' still hung over her. Karen_comments I stayed on in the dining room to plan and speculate; surely tomorrow couldn't be any harder than what we'd already encountered, could it? There were some confusing rumours of cloud and rain for tomorrow, but we were well spoiled with our luck to date, and paid little attention. Our ex-pat friend was still slagging off Britain, followed by Germany and France as I excused myself to go.