I've just come back from a trek in the Pyrenees. This was hard to plan because of our particular constraints: we wanted to go quite early in the season when there's a lot of snow high up, and some of the popular routes are impassable because of the danger of avalanches, crevasses, or falling down a steep snow slope with rocks at the bottom. Another aim was to have the most trekking and the least travelling, and we also wanted as much wild camping as possible rather than hotels, gîtes d'étape or camping sites. Both of us have full-time jobs and are not teachers or academics with long holidays, and I have two small children, so the trip had to fit inside nine days: a working week and the weekends on both sides.
In the end we crossed the French-Spanish border at two rather unusual places, walked part of the Spanish GR11 and part of the French GR10, saw seas of narcissi and drifts of bluebells, walked through vast forests and flowery meadows, watched deer rutting, and, most interestingly for other trekkers, found a dramatic route not mentioned in any of our guide books.
I'm going to give as much information here as possible to help other trekkers, particularly those who can only get away for a week at a time.
My name is Graham Asher and I'm 41. I did this trek with my long-standing trekking companion Mike Waters, who is 36. We're both fitter than average but nothing unusual; I used to run a lot but now manage only about twenty miles a week, and Mike also used to run but is now so injury-prone that most of his exercise is done in the gym. Both of us are a stone or so overweight. Neither of us have ice-axe training so we avoid snow and ice.
Both of us sit behind a desk at work. I'm a software engineer and Mike is a lawyer.
I'm telling you this so that you can judge your own fitness for this sort of thing.
We both had individual tents, which may sound insane, but we like our privacy, and they're very light. Mine is a Saunders Jetpacker Plus and weighs about three and a half pounds including poles and pegs. Mike carried a small Bluet camping gaz stove which is why no cooking equipment appears in the following list. Our packs weighed about 35lb each, which we considered quite a triumph after previous treks with 40lb packs.
Here is what I took:
We flew Air France from London Heathrow to Toulouse and took the train (the second stage of which is actually a bus) from Toulouse to Luchon. Luchon is a good place to start when walking in the Pyrenees because it is large enough to have good transport links, and the GR10 long-distance path goes right through it.
It was already about 5pm so we avoided the long drag up through the woods and took a taxi to Abri de l'Hospice de France, a beauty spot and mountain hut 1385 metres above sea level. We walked steeply uphill to the border and camped just inside Spain near a locked cabin between the Pic de Pouylané and the Pic de Ribesautes. There was only a trickle of water; it would have been better to carry some up from the streams lower down.
A difficult day. The path shown on the map down through the wood of Sapartega dies out in a tangle of rocks, moss and fallen trees somewhere on the steep hillside. With some help from the GPS we managed to blunder downhill until we reached the road, which then wound interminably down to Es Bordes (also known as Les Bordes; places can have at least three names in this area: in Spanish, Catalan and the local language, Aranes). Lunch at a restaurant in Es Bordes.
We then walked to Vielha, following the Carrer de Rieau (I've probably spelt that wrong) or Royal Road, to Aubert; this is an old road on the other side of the valley from the busy main road and is much to be preferred. Vielha is boring and becoming overdeveloped but it is very easy to find a hotel room out of season, so that is what we did. We stayed at the Hotel La Bonaigua, chosen pretty much at random. It was acceptable but nothing special.
A better route would probably use the Pas de la Montjoie as the border crossing, but I don't know whether there would be anywhere flat enough to camp around there. Perhaps we could have camped at Hospice de France and crossed the border the following day.
Our idea at this point was to join the GR11 long-distance path at the Colomers II refuge then head west and come back into France via the Port de Venasque.
We walked along the main road from Vielha east to Garos. Drivers in this area only have two speeds, immobile and flat out, so road walking is rather dangerous. Luckily there is an old road from Garos to Arties, and one can get off the main road again at Gessa. We lunched at the Bar Montaña at Salardú (very large beers and chorizo sandwiches) then followed the flower-filled Aiguamòg valley southward. This is quite a long hard tug, but beer was available at a very pleasant modern hotel near Es Banhs de Tredos. We camped a mile or so further up the road; wild camping is allowed here, as a large notice proclaims. Although the Aiguamòg valley is completely accessible by road it is so beautiful it should not be missed. Only about five or six cars passed us on our walk. I suppose it gets busy later in the season.
This was the day we changed our plans.
The first part of the walk was a very beautiful climb up through pine woods and scrub to the Refugi de Colomers, which stands by a dam overlooking a lake backed by a bleak vista (at this time of year) of snow and rock.
We took the HRP (Haute Route Pyrenéenne) and GR11, which coincide here, westward. At first the going was easy. A well-marked path took us up a rocky hillside to the windy Port de Ribereta at 2450 metres. We were already gingerly crossing snow slopes, and there were many more before we reached the next pass, the Port de Caldes. From there we could see nothing but snow, rocks and frozen lakes, which was not what we were equipped for, and we soon realised that the route to the north of the Estany dels Mangades was far too dangerous. We were not willing to traverse a 45-degree snow slope above sharp rocks.
Fortunately we found a good alternative route around the other side of the lake. It took us an extra hour but got us to the Collada de Crestada safely. There were more snow slopes for the next mile or so. Snow slopes are more dangerous and tiring than many people think. Every now and then you sink in quite deeply, sometimes wrenching your knee, and there is always the danger of sliding on to rocks. At one point I slipped but saved myself by using my walking stick in ice-axe fashion. Good boots are helpful on snow slopes; you can kick steps more easily.
When we got down to the Refugi dera Restanca after a dramatic descent (the refuge looks as if it is directly below you when you are at the Estanh deth Cap deth Port) we discussed our plans with a member of staff, in fact with the knowledgeable and friendly chap who was serving behind the bar. He told us that the weather forecast was bad and that we had really come too early in the season to avoid snow at high altitudes. We thought we could do without more snow in our boots, so we changed our plans and decided to return to France via a more northerly route.
We took a steep and difficult path down through the woods, then found the old mining road down the wooded dale of Valarties. We camped above a deserted picnic site near Pont de Ressec. While we were preparing dinner a hare came up and looked at us from about twenty feet, which I think is quite unusual.
The walk north down to Arties was pretty but nowhere near as pretty as the Aiguamòg valley. We retraced our day 3 route to Salardú, then turned up the Inhòla valley, taking the path rather than the road to Bagergue, which is a very pretty village but with nothing open in early June, then rejoining the road, which from this point is deserted and beautiful. It climbs continously and narrows to a gorge in places. The opposite bank is clad in yellow-flowered broom. We had planned to camp at the meadows of Es Calhaus but there were too many horses and cattle about, and while these beasts present no danger, they sometimes trip over guy ropes, so we moved on and camped at the southern end of the next expanse of meadows, below the Pic de Maubermé.
Why is this route ignored in all the guide books? The Inhòla valley is one of the grandest and most dramatic gorge walks I have done, and there are wild camping opportunites and plenty of water.
The road we followed serves the abandoned Mines de Liat. After a ford at the northern end of the meadows (where one cannot avoid wet feet at this time of year) it winds higher and higher above the torrent. After we reached about 2000 metres it was largely covered by snow and sometimes difficult to find, but soon we could see the ruined mine buildings on the horizon and made for them. We had to be careful crossing snow bridges across streams. A mistake here could mess up your whole day.
We lunched at the mines. It's difficult to image a bleaker place. Rusty girders, shattered masonry, a dazzling black and white pattern of snow and rock, and the sound of trickling melt water. Overlooking everything, gloomy and deserted slopes rising steeply to the ridge that marks the French border. But we had sunshine and good visibility, which made navigation easier.
After lunch everything looked so confusing that I did the next part using the GPS. It took us safely over the Colhada de Goerri and down towards the Toran gorge. This is another incredible gorge unknown to the authors of the guide books. The river gushes violently through a deep cleft in the rocks. Every now and then you catch a glimpse of raging white water. At the bottom there is a series of waterfalls in total about one or two hundred feet high.
After you leave the snow behind you find yourself walking either on ledges above cliffs or through wooded glades covered in bluebells. The path is safe; it's an old mule track supported in places by stone walls.
We found a fording place with some difficulty and camped in tussocky meadows not far from the foot of the waterfall. We were hot, tired and overwhelmed by the smell of wild thyme. That evening we saw deer outlined on the ridge, then two of them started rutting and kept it up until one turned and ran.
According to the map there is a path from the Toran to the French border at the Pas de Porteule just south west of the Cap de la Picque. This path does not exist. We struggled through prickly scrub, using animal paths where possible. There is also no water until you get to France.
The pass is at 1783 metres and there are good views north into France. Seen from this angle the village of Fos twelve hundred metres below looks rather like an aerial photograph. The path dives steeply down through heather and then over meadows to a cabin at the head of the woods. After that we got to the cabin we followed an incredibly steep road all the way down to the bottom. This is slow going because the lower parts of the road are very old and made from smooth slippery stones covered in places by a deep carpet of beech leaves, and mountain boots provide no grip whatever on this surface.
We stayed at a friendly but run-down hotel in Fos; I have forgotten what it was called. There is also a gîte d'étape, which I used when I walked part of the GR10 in 1991, but we wanted more comforts than it could provide.
The last day's walk took nine and a half hours and followed the GR10. It is reasonably well way-marked, despite the warnings we received from the proprietors of the hotel. The first part of the walk is an interminable steep ascent through tangled forest, up another old track paved with slippery stones, followed by a more pleasant section over alpine meadows. This takes you from Fos at 531 metres to a height of around 2100 metres, just below the Pic de Burat. I think we attacked this bit too fast, because we were shattered at the top.
We revived ourselves by eating flapjack and cereal bars and started the long trudge down towards Luchon. There are good views normally but we were cursed by rain and low cloud. The gîte d'étape shown on the map at Artigues apparently closed several years ago, so there was nothing for it but to continue to Luchon, where we found a friendly hotel opposite the station. I must recommend this establishment. It is called the Hôtel du Baliran and the address is 1, Avenue de Toulouse. The family who run it (husband, wife and daughter) were exceptionally helpful to us when we discovered that both Air France and SNCF, the French railway corporation, were on strike and it was going to be difficult to get home. We were rather irritable and they were kind and tolerant.
Well, that was the end of our trek. We got home with less trouble than we had expected. Just a taxi ride to Toulouse, which was expensive, then the discovery that our plane wasn't cancelled after all.
Trekkers can get along fine in this area with rudimentary standard French and Spanish. I give the following information and opinions simply because I am interested in languages.
Everybody knows that the standard languages hereabouts are French and Castillian Spanish. The Pyrenees are rather far from the fountainheads of these languages, however, and the situation on the ground is different.
In France much mention is made of Occitanie, the territory of the Langue d'Oc or version of French that uses or used oc for 'yes', in opposition to standard French or Langue d'Oïl, oïl being the forerunner of oui. (As every schoolboy knows, oc comes from the Latin hoc and oïl from hoc ille; Latin didn't really have words for 'yes' and 'no' so you get some divergence in the successor tongues.) As for hearing Occitan spoken, I have my doubts. To the casual foreign observer it looks as though most people speak heavily accented standard French.
In Spain the Vall d'Aran speaks Aranes, which is now a local official language; children are taught in Aranes in the schools. In a bar in Salardú we heard Aranes spoken on the radio. It is easy to distinguish Aranes from Catalan or Castillian because the feminine definite article is era rather than la. But Aranes holds no surprises; it's just another Romance language. I suspect the differences between it and Catalan are exaggerrated deliberately. It was interesting to see on a closed restaurant door the sign 'Barrat - Tancat - Cerrado'. The first two are Aranes and Catalan, I forget in which order, and the third is Castillian.
I don't believe anybody speaks Basque this far east, but at an entrance to a wilderness park we saw a sign in several languages including Basque.
The Spanish (Servicio Geográphico del Ejército) maps have the UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) grid printed on them as 1km squares and use and the European datum of 1950. Unfortunately the trekking editions of the The French (Institute Géographique National) maps have no grid printed on them, although I know from experiment that they use the same datum.
I checked the positions given by the GPS against the Spanish maps a few times when we knew where we were and found them to be accurate except in one instance when we were on the bank of the Toran. Transferring the GPS reading to the map gave a position half way up the mountain, at least 250 metres away from the river, so in this case the map must be wrong. I can say this because in my experience the GPS either works perfectly or not at all, and it is accurate to 50 metres.