At more than 2,400 meters. Far from the madding crowd. There stands what is now Colomina’s refuge, guarded by her guardian, Gerard Garreta, for whom this place is more than just work. A way of life that he would not change for anything because it has already changed everything: his ‘always’ job as a computer manager in a large bank to live, literally, in the mountains of Vall Fosca.
In office language, that was going to be a ‘break’. The guard who previously managed the Colomina shelter suggested Gerard work during the summer months. Ideal to be able to combine that ‘job’ with two of his hobbies: running and climbing. The pieces finally came together when the person who opened the doors of the shelter to him announced his intention to put an end to his career there after 24 years of service. “Everything happened very quickly,” explains Gerard.
So quickly that he started on his own, but not for long. His partner, who was then a branch manager, waited for that first winter season to end to ask for a leave of absence “and go up.” He canceled it right away. They both knew that was what they wanted. “We were clear about it, it was perfect and here we are,” she adds. Since then, no day is the same, and for that reason nothing is left to chance. Life in the shelter requires discipline so that what is hard is bearable.
Day to day life differs depending on the time of year. In April, May, June and the end of September, enjoy the guard life and its incomparable surroundings. In July and August the pace of work is more frenetic. “We always have minutes of recess, because we are lucky to have what we have.” Gerard points around him accompanied by Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente, witness to the beauty that surrounds them while he interviews him.
The guarding job seems idyllic, even simple, but it hides enormous complexity. “Nothing is easy here,” could be the shelter’s motto – and for him a claim. Logistics is complex and infrastructure is scarce, which is why organization is key. There is no electricity or running water in the building. “We work with solar panels and to have water each season a structure is set up, which is dismantled at the end of summer. If you don’t do it, the water won’t come out of the tap,” Garreta describes.
No road reaches its imposing 2,400 meters. The closest one is two and a half hours walk away. If possible, bring bread and vegetables on foot, but practically everything heavy arrives at the shelter by helicopter, so it is necessary not to waste space or fuel. All loads must be perfectly measured and very well planned. “If you calculate the bread wrong, you have a problem here,” Gerard clarifies.
In the mountains – as it should also be everywhere – nothing is left over, nothing is thrown away. They even weigh and ‘declare’ the waste generated, which, of course, is recycled: paper, cardboard, glass, etc. And they reuse any surplus: wood, iron. “If you don’t function like that, you don’t survive,” he adds. Everything has a second life, like the shelter, which before becoming what it is was the house of the Swiss engineer who supervised the works of the first hydroelectric plant in the country.
It was 1917. The individual in question was called Keller, and that is also how the Colomina shelter is known: Keller House, built in a very passive, very Swiss way, as Gerard points out: “For example, the windows are facing south. In winter the sun comes in and with the magnifying glass effect you can be at 20 degrees, without a heater. In summer the sun goes higher, it hits the roof, but not the windows. The building maintains a comfortable temperature level.”
Once the works were completed, the so-called Keller house officially became a Colomina shelter in 1973, after a transfer for its exploitation by the owner of the building, Fecsa (Endesa), to the Federation of Hiking Entities of Catalonia (FEEC). , which brings together 428 hiking clubs and entities in the region and offers services so that they can carry out their activity. In 1985, the Federation carried out a complete renovation to adapt it to the needs of hikers who visited this area of ??the Aigüestortes and Estany de Sant Maurici National Park. In 2011 and 2017, the latest renovations and extensions were carried out by the architect Josep Bunyesc, National Prize for Culture in Architecture (2012).
For its current guardian, the shelter, which in 2017 turned a whopping 100 years old, is an allegory that, if we want, we can leave no trace. “The shelter itself could be dismantled and nothing would be left, even the oldest part. You could unscrew each screw and take it with you. If you want, there is nothing left here,” he explains. But this is not the case with him, intended to provide shelter to those who pass by looking for shelter. Specifically, more than 3,500 people spend the night a year.
At the energy level it is self-sufficient. “We are lucky to have a solar installation that means that, in 16 years, we have only turned on a generator set one day, in an emergency,” explains Gerard, who thanks life for having changed that: life. “The refuge is me and I am the refuge. I had a life. Coming here changed my life. This shelter was created for one thing, for one life, and now it is another. “We all change and we can change.”
One of the people who knows the Colomina shelter well is Ramón Tornero, coordinator of the FEEC Shelter Committee. In total, there are 20, including ‘guarded’ and emergency shelters. “Shelters fulfill a very important social function: protecting people.”
There is always an emergency shelter available in the shelter itself, even if it is not guarded, that is, “even if the guard is not there.” They are services that are used and that, as Ramón shares, are a school of life. For him it has been. The mountain represents his memories of youth, experience, effort, life, says Ramón: “Today is a fantastic day and tomorrow is not, and that is life. The mountain does not leave the site. If you can’t get there one day, you’ll get there tomorrow.”
Even today, he confesses, he cannot be away from her. And she hopes the same thing happens to others. In the mountains, through the hiking club, or the FEEC, “one fills one’s life backpack with quite a few important things.” “I wouldn’t know how to live without being linked to some activity, although now I take things more calmly,” he shares, without missing the opportunity to send a message to society: “You have to use the natural environment to enrich yourself vitally, but doing so with more education, without making a mess.”
One of the people who also knows the energy potential of the area is Josep Maria Carrera, who as a child went up to Colomina with his family. Today he is a technician for the Baix Pallaresa group and head of operation of the Vall Fosca cable car, owned by Endesa, which gives it away during the summer months for tourist use, attracting hundreds of visitors to the Torre de Capdella, one of the natural entrances to the Sant Maurici and Aigüestortes Park.
He works at the Sallente power plant, in operation since 1986, which has no “loss of water resources.” That is, the energy that is left over in the electrical system is accumulated for when the system requires energy. “What we do is raise the water up and accumulate it as if it were a large battery of water potential,” explains Josep Maria.
He himself highlights how the arrival of hydroelectric plants, at the beginning of the 20th century, contributed to the economic development of this area. “The arrival of hydraulic exploitation by a large company meant the construction of infrastructure, the lighting of towns, even the construction of a hospital, and all the employment that it entails.”
The Colomina refuge is much more than a place of shelter; It is an example of how human beings can live in harmony with nature, leaving a minimal footprint in their wake. Her story is a reminder that we can all change and adapt to a more sustainable world, if we want to.
