The 11 best mountain books in Pyrenean literature
This week we bring you a carefully selected selection with 11 of the best mountain books set in the PyreneesEleven copies that you can't miss in your Pyrenean library!
As you can see, we have left out the great works of the historical novel, which deserve their own category. On this occasion we wanted to focus on other types of novels, on personal stories, some fictional and some real, and among all this, we wanted to leave a little room for the little ones. At the end of our particular list we have included two books of stories for the future Pyrenees climbers.
Serg's "Solo es andar" (It's just walking)i Latorre
The Trans-Pyrenees is a mountain route that runs through the Pyrenees in its entirety. It links Cape Higuer, in Gipuzkoa, with Cap de Creus, in Girona, along the GR11 long-distance footpath. More than 800 kilometres through the Basque, Navarrese, Aragonese, Andorran and Catalan Pyrenees. With a cumulative positive and negative difference in altitude of 78,000 metres, it is approximately the equivalent of climbing up and down Everest nine times.
It is divided into more or less stages, although the average is usually around 45 days of trekking through medium and high mountains: an adventure that many have dreamed of since they heard of its existence. Sergi Latorre is one of them.
And here he tells us about it with detail and wit, every step of the journey, 800 kilometres through beech forests and alpine meadows, glacial valleys at the foot of the peaks, cols and ravines, tarmacs and lost villages, storms and starry skies. The text mixes the experiential with the practical in such a way that Solo es andar can serve as a kind of unofficial guide to accompany your steps. A sincere, entertaining, thorough book.
To understand the journey in its entirety. To fight for the cause of the present, following the red and white signs. To be guided by the stone, the water and the wind. To believe that it is possible. To laugh and be inspired. For dreamers and dreamers who dare to just begin.
"Refugio", by Pedro Sáez Serrano
Desnivel 2020 Award Finalist
After seven years working as a mountain guide in Nepal, David Abós returns to his family village of Asomo, in the Pyrenees, where he starts a new life running a small mountain hut. During his years in Asia, David has become a first-class climber, thus fulfilling his most pressing youthful dreams. However, dark reasons now seem to push him to reject any sporting ambition, and to take refuge as a hermit.
In the course of the story, the causes that have brought about this transformation in him are revealed, including personal heartbreak but also the evidence that mountaineering, unlike what David maintained in his naïve years, is not a field alien to the growing commodification of life and the world. The return to home, to a possible kind and secluded life, far from being a solution to his disenchantment, means the prolongation of conflicts equivalent to those left behind, whose unexpected festering will push David to take risky decisions.
A book of mountains and adventure, also a reflection on the functions that both mountaineering and literature can play in our world, perhaps forever removed from any notion of refuge. And a passionate hymn to the mountains, the Pyrenees and the childhood dreams that remain forever in the soul.
"The time of emptiness", by Jokin Azketa
In some characteristic places that all mountaineers know and through which hundreds of hikers walk, peculiar events begin to occur. A FEDME director is suspicious that they are simply accidents and, although nobody pays any attention to him, he begins to investigate with the help of a private investigator, with whom he establishes a curious relationship. The rescue teams are mobilised on many occasions, which sometimes turn out to be false alarms, but which sow confusion and fear among the mountaineers.
As the action unfolds, the federative carries out a painstaking job of gathering information about Count Russell, one of the fathers of Pyreneesism. The two plots eventually connect, helping to establish the idea that truth is something difficult to pin down.
The events of both periods take place in landscapes of striking beauty, showing a great concern for the protection of nature, which in one of the protagonists is, at times, somewhat unhealthy.
"The Monster of Artouste", by Alberto Martinez Embid
Winner of the 7th Desnivel Prize for Mountain, Travel and Adventure Literature.
The year was 1921 and Europe was still struggling to forget the nightmare of the First World War, a human catastrophe the likes of which it had never known before. With the intention of once again flying the flag of progress for the old continent, the French Compagnie du Midi set out to bring the latest advances in hydraulic engineering to the heights of the Pyrenees and developed plans for the construction of the great Artouste dam.
Joseph Armand, a French engineer, mountaineer with a certain amount of alpine experience and former combatant on the front lines of the Great War, has been trying to drown his sorrows in alcohol for several years. When he is appointed director of the Artouste railway construction site - a facility to serve the future great dam - a prospect of professional and personal redemption opens up for him. Joseph arrives in the small Pyrenean village of Gabas full of hope, but... he soon realises that the inhabitants of the Ossau valley, both French and Spanish, do not always share the ideas of progress that the French and the Spaniards have of the Ossau valley, and that they do not always share his ideas of progress. Mr. Engineer brings from the metropolis. He is also troubled by the fact that his predecessor died in a fatal accident, which some attribute to the voracity of the bears in the area, and others to the mysterious Loup-garouWhen he discovers traces of more deaths, Joseph Armand begins a risky investigation, in which he is helped by the beauty of the Osales mountains and... the torrid romance with María Cristina Abadía, the foreman's daughter.
In this original novel, winner of the 7th Desnivel Prize for Mountain, Travel and Adventure Literature, the author gives us an excellent historical and mountain setting, against the backdrop of which a plot of crime, mystery and love unfolds, with an unexpected outcome.
"Viento Salvaje: Cronica de una tragedia en los Pirineos" (Wild Wind: Chronicle of a Tragedy in the Pyrenees), by Jordi Cruz
Jacint Verdaguer Prize 2019.
Best mountain narrative book in Catalan.
Wild wind is the intense chronicle of the episode of blizzard that devastated the Pyrenees, brutally and suddenly, during the last days of the year 2000: of the hikers who were trapped around the summit of Balandrau and of the teams that tried to rescue them. Wind, snow and a sudden drop in temperatures caused the most important mountain tragedy in the Catalan Pyrenees in living memory.
Jordi Cruz, a meteorologist, researched those events years later in the newspaper archives and interviewed those who were involved in them, family and friends. Through their testimony he manages to weave the story, hour by hour, of those days and nights. The result is not only a mountain book but, above all, the flesh and blood story of those who suffered that "Tragic end of the millennium in the mountains".
"A walk through the Pyrenees", by Edu G.Brocal
Within this selection of 10 titles of Pyrenean literature, "A walk through the Pyrenees" is a book that we would like to highlight especially if you like winter mountains. In it, Edu. G. Brocal, brings together in a very close way the adventures lived over several years in our nearby and wild Pyrenees. If you like walking, you will surely feel identified with him on more than one occasion.
An exciting experience, for example, mountaineering in the Pyrenees and in winter, when even the simplest ascents can become an exciting adventure. In this book, Edu G. Brocal, climber and mountaineer, tells us about the days he spent in this area of Northern Spain doing routes and climbing on rock and ice. What happens, what he feels and what it means to bring out the will, strength and passion to achieve goals and summits. G. Brocal opens the door to these days spent almost at the edge of the limit. Extreme experiences conditioned by the low temperatures that occur in winter, in an ideal setting for mountaineering in any season. This book, pleasant and easy to read, will transport us to the most beautiful corners of the mountain range, where there is still a place to live fantastic experiences.
"How beautiful are the Pyrenees", by Hipólito Maeso Rueda
This book is the story of an unpublished pilgrimage to the highest peaks of the Pyrenees. During 34 days in the summer of 1999, the author climbed all the peaks with a height of 3000 metres or more. In search of the sun, each and every one of the 212 three-thousanders of the mountain range was linked and completed in a simple and natural way, with no outside assistance other than the shelters and refuges where he found company, food and bedding.
The adventures and uncertainties, the memories of before and after, flow through this Pyrenean diary, which only aims to share with the reader the experiences and sensations that accompanied his particular journey.
Victor Hugo's "Journey to the Pyrenees and the Alps".
The Pyrenees and the Alps have been sung about by hundreds of writers, historians and naturalists ever since Polybius described, with a remarkable dose of imagination, Hannibal's crossing of the second of these two great European mountain ranges. Few, however, have done so with the literary quality and penetrating gaze of Victor Hugo, who, as an established figure, travelled them, and climbed some of their peaks, when they held intact their formidable natural treasure, now restricted by human pressure and the consequences of climate change.
This book is an account of his journey through the Pyrenees in 1843 and the one he made through the Alps four years earlier. In both chronicles, the author gave free rein to his romantic impulse, describing not only the magnificence of nature, but also his changing moods and the historical legends and political circumstances of the places he passed through, almost always supporting revolutionary theses for the time.
Moreover, his journey to the Pyrenees had a special significance as he returned to places where he had stayed in his childhood on his way to Madrid. Journey to the Pyrenees and the Alps demonstrates the undisputed mastery as a travel narrator of a Victor Hugo who, as he confesses in its pages, spent his life "between a point of admiration and a point of questioning".
"The Snows of Aneto", by Nanou Saint-Lèbe
Las Nieves del Aneto is a novel about the conquest of the highest peak in the Pyrenees, but it is also a novel featuring men and women from Benasque and Luchon, some fictional and some real. Alongside them, the author places mountaineers with a passion for the Pyrenees and from other places, such as Catalonia or Ireland. Over and above the passions, fears and tragedies, Aneto is the true hero of this captivating adventure. Its rhythm will captivate the reader of historical novels and the mountaineer who has ever walked the ice fields of the Montes Malditos.
"Tales of the Pyrenees for children and adults", by Rafael Andolz
In the Pyrenees, the story was told on long winter evenings. The storyteller, the storyteller, the storyteller... was the grandfather. The climax came with the crackling of the fire, the whistling of the wind at the top of the chimney, the snow on the windowsill and the light in the lantern. The audience: children young and old, shepherds, servants, labourers, who drank in the old man's words to repeat them to the next generation when the time came.
"Tina en los Carros de Foc", by Araceli Segarra
In this great adventure Tina travels through the nine refuges of the Carros de Foc circuit, located in the Parc Nacional d'Aiguestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici. On her journey Tina will discover the secrets hidden in its lakes, reveal mysteries and legends, and meet magical, curious and endearing characters. A new story created and brought to life by the mountaineer Araceli Segarra, author of the texts and illustrations.
