How to Trick Your Friends Into Hut Hiking in the Spanish Pyrenees Mountains

In October, the Pyrenees look rather dull from afar. Awash in hazy sun, they're made up of mostly brown midtones. From the alpine village where the trailhead for the Travessa dels Tres Refugis begins, however, it's green and lush. The way climbs up through a forested canyon, past waterfalls and views back down over Iberia. The scenery buoyed our spirits and carried thoughts away from aching heads. It's steep, too though. The first signs of discontent in our party came after I mistakenly identified and announced the "final'' switchback of the first big ascent. Good-humored expletives were yelled toward the canyon's opposing wall as we zigzagged up a few more.

But soon after, a glimpse of the sublime: traversing the side of a cliff, we came through the canyon's narrow head and rock gave way to grass as a seemingly endless valley unrolled itself into the distance and around a far corner. If the rugged climb had stoked any malcontent in the ranks, the lively stroll along the river at the valley's center snuffed them out. We passed plenty of cows and marmots but not a single other person. One of my companions marveled more than once that he'd never been alone in a place so expansive.

This was my goal from the start, to show them something I knew they'd never seen. These payoff moments are pivotal in balancing out the pain, physical and emotional, inflicted during a proper sandbagging. Without them you're just being masochistic, and your friends might never accompany you anywhere ever again.

It also prepared them for what I knew, having looked at elevation charts while making the detailed itinerary, and what they didn't really, having not read it: The final push was the biggest push. Unlike our walk up the canyon where views were constrained, we could see up the side of the valley to the saddle we had to reach, and it was far away. Instead of dirt switchbacks, the way was a choose-your-own-adventure up a lumpy grass hill with an unyielding grade. Partway up, one friend (the one with more hiking experience) admitted that perhaps he wasn't as prepared for this as he'd thought.

Then the geography turned on us; the crest we'd viewed from the bottom revealed itself to be nothing but a bump, and this false summit mutated my friend's brief moment of self-reflection into a barbaric verbal malevolence directed wholly at me. I expected this, and perhaps even deserved it. The wildly incorrect time estimates on trail signs didn't help. We reached the top of the saddle, the real top, just in time to prevent potential disaster. Twenty minutes later, we were sipping beers in plastic chairs outside the Refugio de Ulldeter, waiting for the dinner bell.

The second day—roughly 15 miles with 4,200 feet of elevation gain—played out similarly to the first, starting with a brief climb from the hut to a nearby col and into France. Then, a long wander down through a valley where the scenery and the sounds of cowbells and the stream flowing through its center could trick you into thinking you were in Austria. The Pyrenees could do with a bit more credit, I thought.

At the bottom we found Refuge de la Carança, the second hut along the "Route of Three Huts," and from there we turned to walk up another valley and back into Spain. The second day of any hiking trip is always the hardest day and the unending climb back to the alpine in the hot Catalonian sun made this second day particularly hard. Energy and spirits shrunk but the way to the ridge only seemed to lengthen. It walloped my friends, mercilessly toyed with their psyches. Here, a picturesque glen; then, a 400-foot rock stair to the next shelf. But above that, a pristine alpine lake; and beyond that false summit after false summit after false summit.

So we found ourselves in the crux of the sandbag, exactly where I expected it. It crushed them. Methods of exacting revenge were contemplated; murder was openly considered. What I didn't expect was that I was right there with them; I'd accidentally sandbagged myself.

So many remark on "the power of the mountains" that it's become a cliche, but how else can you explain what drove us, upon reaching that ridge, bodies and minds wholly depleted, the chance of making it to our next hut by dinnertime already slim, to drop our packs and climb to the adjacent summit, and beyond it to another lookout after that? Golden hour in the mountains will do that.

The way down was long, but all negativity had been dissipated in the early evening light. We did make dinner (by something like six minutes), and the Refugi Coma de Vaca was packed with happy people from Spain and France and elsewhere. The room was full of cheer as everyone ate and swapped stories of where they'd been and where they planned to go tomorrow. There was no telling who'd been brought and who did the bringing, our small party included. Three months later, one of my friends called the experience "one of the craziest trips I've ever done."

A happy ending is how you know the sandbag worked. When they can reflect how "that last climb sucked" but do so with a smile. Even during the most difficult moments, I'd been confident we'd come out the other side alright; I've been pressured into enough adventures that sucked in the moment but were fun in the end, impactful even. This is how you know it works, that it can benefit a friendship rather than destroy it. Sometimes a little coercion can be a good thing.

If you ever successfully sandbag your own friends, just don't be surprised if they never let you plan a repeat trip. There's always a chance of this. (End your trip at the beach to reduce the odds.) And know that etiquette insists that you accept the invitation to do their off-kilter thing when it comes.