4. The Mountains Are Steep, and the Valleys Are Narrow
While the Alps are also stupid-steep, the steepness of the Pyrenees also overshadows that of the Rockies, on average. Many of the trails we rode were steep plunges down the sharp-angled mountain sides, ending in the valleys far, far below.
All of the valleys that we stayed in and finished our rides in were extremely narrow, with impressive mountain ridges rising straight up from the rivers and water bodies, forming a formidable ring of rock around the small amount of habitable land. Toward the end of our journey we stayed in La Cerdanya, which my guide Jordi told me was the widest valley in the Pyrenees—and it didn’t even appear to be as far across as my home Arkansas Valley, not to mention other much wider and expansive valleys in the Rockies like the San Luis Valley.
The narrowness of the valleys and the drastic change in elevation drive home how hardy you have to be to excel as an athlete in the Pyrenees–especially if you don’t have a shuttle for every ride like we did. Kilian Jornet is arguably the best ultrarunner in the world in 2016, as well as one of the very best skimo athletes on the planet. While he now lives in Norway, he was born and raised in the Cerdanya region of the Pyrenees, and the bar where we finished the final ride of our trip was decorated with Kilian photos and memorabilia.
