From the cog train station there are several routes out of Nuria.  We followed a group of students who took the right leg.  A seemingly boring path. I wanted to take the center route that rose above the resort.  I lost that argument (and all the others).  We followed the kids.  The teenagers, like Lemmings, started with a furious dash to the sea.  Alas, before they could go 1/4 mile they were exhausted.  Perhaps too much time on their buns playing "Game Boys" and not near enough on their feet.  The route they chose, however, turned out to be the awesome.  I was wrong, imagine that.
We walked 12 miles that day.  Six miles to the pass and the same distance back.  We were alone all the way.  It doesn't appear the Spanish people trek as much as their northern European neighbors.   

Flanking the falls is what I believe is False Hellebore, called vedegambre in 
Spanish and verate in Catalan.  This lily is actually Veratrum album.
Gentian flanked the trail the last third of the way to the pass.

To me this looked like Elk Thistle that is found commonly in the Rockies, especially around Yellowstone, Big Sky Montana and the Tetons.  This Cirsium species, Corona De Fraile, (Cirsium eriophorum) is not used as medicine in Spain.  It is not eaten by ungulates either as this was within easy reach of horses, cattle and chamois.
Chamois.  The population of this species appears safe.  We saw over a hundred of them on this climb.  You can order them cooked in many mountain village restaurants, texture is like venison, dark, sweet but not as "gamy". 

If you are a daughter or son of the "Fifties" you probably used a chamois cloth to dry your flathead straight eight Ford.  If you are younger, you are probably wondering what a flathead straight eight was: best street dragster in the neighborhood.

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