Travel in strange country can restore lost sight, bring again the wide-eyed visions of childhood, the poet's sense of belonging. There are places which set us free.

In the Enchanted Mountains Robin Fedden and his companions found such freedom. His account of climbs and journeys in the Spanish Pyrenees evokes the wonder and pleasure that they felt. The enigmatic Don Miguel, powerless to climb himself, guides them from afar, sharing their failures and successes from the morning when they leave the sleeping village of Lès to the bivouac, a year later, beneath the summit of the Enchanted Mountain. The crumbling palaces of Benasque, the bees and card players in the Fonda del Sayo, the headwaters of the Esera with their mysterious herd, the brigand who was a painter, the shepherds turned to stone, the deserted baths of Tredos, the tent they pitch by solitary streams, and the never-failing flowers; these are as much a part of their approach to the Encatados as the fretted Aiguilles de Travesany, the new route on the Gran Pic de Colomes, or the shattered ridge of the Fourcanade.

One is left with the feeling that life was generously present in the Enchanted Mountain.