Continuity and Change

Pastoralism in the Pyrenees dates back to the Neolithic, it is thought, and beginning in the early Middle Ages the herding culture in these high valleys of the Pyrenees of Aragon changed relatively little for hundreds of years—until the 20th century. The written record, where it exists, of village rules, court cases and household economic transactions suggests that the same patterns of use and institutions governed the annual production cycle and use of pastures for centuries. As we begin to explore the countryside around Jaca, I am constantly struck by the juxtaposition of the ancient and modern, of continuity and change. On Friday, I looked out the window of our apartment complex on the edge of town just in time to see a flock of sheep being trailed past our swimming pool and green space towards one of the main roads through Jaca. Jaca itself has been inhabited since pre-Roman times and its cathedral dates from the 12 century. This small city for the most part gracefully blends the ancient monuments--the cathedral, a monastery, a roman bridge, and later military fortifications--with more modern architecture, and its economy depends significantly on tourism, not only from the nearby ski areas, but also the steady stream of pilgrims that follow the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), a time-honored religious pilgrimage route and now popular long-distance hike, from France to Santiago de Compostela in Northwest Spain.


This morning (Sunday) we took the local bus up the valley of the River Aragon to the ski area Astún to hike in the high country before the snow flies. I had thought that there would be a village at Astún, with the ski area built around an existing town, but this was not the case. The bus dropped us in the parking lot of the ski area and the only structures were the ticket booths and a hotel and shopping complex that appeared closed for the season. Our destination was the Ibón de Escalar, a glacial pond ringed by peaks that is only an hour’s hike from Astún. As we started up a gravel maintenance road on the ski slope, we looked up the mountainside to seek the source of a clanging and clamoring noise upslope. It was a large flock of sheep making their way over a pass into the Valley of Astún and spreading across the hillside as the sun began to light up the slope. The clanging were the bells on their necks and the clamoring the bleating. So here again was the coexistence of ancient and new livelihoods in this valley—pastoralism and ski tourism.

After a few switch-backs the road leveled for a while and crossed a small creek, and the trail became a footpath through the grasses and heather proceeding up the shoulder of a hill, crossing the creek again, and then zig-zagging up the side of the canyon. I had a brief moment of vertigo as the trail skirted some rock ledges on one side and a cliff dropped off on the other, but we edged past the tricky spot and continued walking up the steep grassy slope towards the peaks beyond. About 15 minutes later, we topped a small ridge and the Ibón lay below us, the outflow feeding the stream we followed up. Beyond the Ibón the trail continued on to a pass, the border with France, and more ambitious hikers had a choice of two peaks to bag from there—Pic de Moines (2347 meters), in France, or Pico de Astún (2287 m), in Spain—both walk-ups about an hour beyond the Ibón --but I had promised the kids an easy hike. We enjoyed taking photos of the peaks that circled us to the north and west, and the sea of dense mountain fog that lay caught between them, but below us, obscuring the view of the ski area and giving the illusion that we were aloft among the primeval peaks with only the sheep and some ponies grazing the slopes of Pic de Moines for company.