Ensagents hiking NFC cache

Ensagents

The hills of the Pyrenees in Andorra are beautiful. There are wonderfully quiet, remote valleys with fascinating forests and plains. Small lakes and streams run through the landscape. Higher up, there are fascinatingly rugged rocky landscapes. The Ensagents valley is one of them. It is located in the municipality of Encamp, at around 2,700 m above sea level, up to the highest peak at 2,874 m above sea level, the Alt del Griu. At the upper end, it opens into a rugged mountain basin with several lakes.

In between, there are small, simple huts where you can spend the night and seek shelter in case of a sudden change in the weather. The Refugi d'Ensagents is one of the well-equipped huts. It was built in 1981 and can accommodate 8 people. The hut stands at 2,420 m above sea level, is not staffed and is freely accessible.

The route

The easiest way up can be completed from the indicated car park in about 2 hours. It first leads quite steeply uphill through a beautiful forest and then becomes flatter before finally continuing uphill over boulders. Along the way, there are interesting sections along a rock face and across streams. The 3.6 km route involves about 500 metres of elevation gain.

The route from Encamp up here and back can also be completed in one day.

The GeoCache

There is a guest book in the hut, right next to the door. This is not the cache logbook. However, there is an NFC tag stuck in the book, and that is it. The password required for the find log is stored on the tag. You need a device that can read its text entry (some devices can only read URL entries by default). Look for my entry dated 2026-09-18.

If it does not work, take photos (of the entry) and send them to me privately.

NFC-Cache

This cache is an NFC-Cache. NFC stands for "Near Field Communication" and describes a radio technology over a very short distance (normally a few centimeters). At the coordinates, you will find an NFC tag instead of a container. This is a small sticker containing a microchip and an antenna. The tag can be accessed with a device that supports NFC. Many current smartphones have the corresponding capability. The smartphone is brought close to the tag, it receives power from the smartphone and a brief data exchange takes place.
Further details on NFC can be found, for example, on Wikipedia.

I wish you a wonderful hike.