A few weekends ago in June we woke up to a gloomy Saturday (sigh) and decided it was the perfect day to tackle one of our local bucketlist items : hike to the top of La Rhune mountain. La Rhune, with an elevation of 2,969 feet, is part of the Pyrenees mountain range, located on the west end, bordering France and Spain. We can see it from most local towns and anywhere with a view. We had heard it was a great hike with an amazing panoramic view of Basque Country. There is also a train, Le Petit Train, that you can take to the top of the mountain, but we opted for the hike to the top for our first La Rhune experience.
We started our hike at the train station at the base of the mountain, which is about a 30 minute drive from our house. The trail ended up being more difficult than we were expecting – I think we expected winding switchbacks, and instead it started off heading straight UP, and up and up and up. We were pretty sweaty, but I loved the workout! The view from the trail as we headed up was pretty incredible and of course I stopped to take a million pictures. Basque Country gets so much rain that everything is very lush and green. I loved seeing all the local foliage, especially the ferns. With the forest to one side and the fog creeping down a mountain on the other, it felt like we had stepped into a scene from Game of Thrones. On the way up we passed horses, including the cutest baby horse, and fences and old farm houses built out of stones.
It took us about 2 hours to make it to the top. The fog became more and more dense the higher we climbed, so when we finally reached the summit there was no view. But there was a small restaurant where we refueled with some lemon beer, a jambon sandwhich, and some Spanish croquets. It was cool because when we started the hike we were in France, but the top of the mountain is in Spain, so everyone at the restaurant was speaking Spanish and they were serving Spanish snacks. It was very busy at the top because a train full of tourists had arrived right as we reached the summit. We were bummed we didn’t get to see the famous panoramic view from the top so we’ll have to come back and do it again when the sun is out.
The hike back was even more foggy than the hike up, and we lost the trail a couple times and had to back track. Seeing the fog creeping through the forest was pretty amazing, and we could hear bells jingling in the distance, most likely attached to livestock of some sort so that their owners could find them in the fog. We made it down in about an hour and a half, legs sore from the climb, but totally worth it! If you ever make it to Basque Country we would definitely recommend this gorgeous hike!
