The road is very nice, if you like strong sensations, pretty long from Barcelona – about 6 hours. Two very nice gorges that I’ve already seen this winter when I was skiing in Cerler.

From Benasque there is a bus that takes you to La Besurta which is the starting point for going to Renclusa refuge. A very nice and easy climb to Renclusa.

I stayed there for that night doing a small climb to a smaller lake above the refuge.

Eating some blueberries.

At Renclusa the stream is disappearing in a subterranean cave. The same as at Forao de Aigualluts.

Renclusa Refuge:

Another perspective from above Renclusa:

In the evening it started to rain and it did so all night. In the morning at 5 AM nobody was crazy enough to start the climb, as the weather was not looking good at all. At first I said that I will climb until the Portillon Inferior and I will see from there. As I climbed the weather had good and worse moments but allowed me to gain terrain.

At 9 AM the rain stopped and I started climbing by myself. The other guys from the refuge took other less complicated routes.

The road to Portillons. From time to time the weather seem to improve and I kept climbing.

Portillon Inferior:

Portillon Superior is where you pass on the other valley and start climbing for the glacier.

This is where I got lost. I had to do some zig zags to get the correct path. When the fog was to dense I stopped and eat some biscuits waiting for the weather to improve. Lucky me it didn’t take too long.

Before glacier was raining again.

I finally reach the glacier. In the winter or when the snow is present you reach more easy to this point. It was my first time on a glacier, so I took it easy to test my new ice ax and spikes. You need good boots with firm ankle grip as the tension is strong on them.

The weather was cold and wet and there were no marks from previous climber due to the rain.

Small crevases were all over the place, as blocks of granite floating over. The fog came back.

This was the moment I decided to finally turn back. It was pretty late, about 3.30 pm, as I left very late and I had to stop several times because of heavy fog. The peak was about 1 hour away and 100 m elevation, but I couldn’t afford losing 2 extra hours and go back on night on possible bad conditions. The peak stayed foggy all day and I almost didn’t have the chance to see it. The peak has also a difficult pass, Mohammed Brigde which is pretty difficult even in good conditions.

The way back was uneventful but hard. The knees are severely tested by all that 6 hours of rock to rock jumping.

View Aneto Climb in a larger map

This was a long and nice ride. I discovered a very nice massive, clean and beautiful. I really liked that is difficult and tested my capabilities. People who are looking for a walk in the park should find a park nearby because Aneto is not a park. These days climbing a mountain can seem more easy and danger less but the truth is that if you don’t pay attention the mountain will not forgive you. Respect the mountain and you’ll survive.