Pic d'Anie

For a finale, today's goal was a local high peak: Pic d'Anie. From the side facing Lescun, it appears only to be reachable using rock climbing techniques. However, by following a mor circuitous route, you can come around to the gentler west and south faces that aren't much more than steep trail over scree. At over 8,000 ft (2504 m), it is definitely one of the highest climbs I've done - higher than anything in the Whites by a fair bit.

The hike starts at the Refuge L'Arberouat, which is like a hut you could find in the Whites, although a little less rustic. A purist might have walked the extra 1:30 from our doorstep to get up to it, but I got a lift instead.

I was hardly alone: the parking lot had many vehicles and hikers lacing up.

This is not Pic d'Anie. This is le Billare - the hulking massif that looms like Half Dome over the Cirque de Lescun. I just like the dog hanging out near the refuge.

Pic d'Anie is the hulk just right of center. Trust me, the stuff in the foreground is all shorter.

The walk started with by following the GR10 northwest through some ups and downs in forest before opening up into a long open valley bordered to the north by a spine of limestone called les Orgues de Camplong. Although the trail shows the trail running right past Cabanne d'Ardinet, I didn't notice it until I got nearly all the way to the next landmark of Cabanne Cap de la Baitch. (I have to resist the urge to pronounce it as "Be-atch").

Here is Cap de la Baitch and the Orgues, looking back the way I came up.

I did not linger to hobnob with the shepherd there selling cheese, but instead pressed on and began to ascend in earnest up the head of the valley. For this I broke away from the GR10 and instead followed the HRP: the High Route of the Pyrenees. This is another trans-Pyrenean trekking trail, but as you could guess from the name, stays pretty high up.

The hike up from the Cabanne to the Col passed through numerous distinct rock strata. This layer really caught my eye.

Before I fully realized, I was topping out at the east edge of Col des Anies. This is a broad, mostly flat, large expanse of broken rock, fissures, clefts, and intertwined routes. It is, I expect, much like traversing the broken end of a glacier. Wayfinding was difficult and, were it foggy, almost impossible. Although the HRP travels a good ways west before hitting up a trail to ascend Pic d'Anie, I and another guy started heading up the slopes much sooner to the east, under the shadow of Pic de Countendè. Following cairns, he and I threaded our way around the broken rocks and clefts, passing an 8-foot wooden cross planted into some boulders on a promontory, to pick up the main trail.

This made a long sloping traverse around the north face. As we reached the west face, there was a little scramble where handholds were both necessary and plentiful, before we started switchbacking up to, eventually, the windswept summit.

Yours truly at the summit.

From here there was a spectacular view! Of course one can see down into the Cirque de Lescun, but also northwards into the bulk of France. Lescun is actually close to the northern flank of the Pyrenees - within a few miles of here everything becomes flat to the horizon. To the east and south: mountains as far as the eye can see. Directly south: bits and pieces of the hikes we have done earlier this week as well as peaks I've seen on the map but didn't get a chance to climb. Not too far to the south is the Spanish border: a day's walk on the HRP.

Looking down on Lescun (and about half the hikes I've done this week) from the top.

Coming down I ran into a spot of trouble on the Col. As I mentioned, it is a broad expanse of crumbling limestone: a patchwork of small ridges, fissures, and gravel piles. I knew the way I had come up, and I knew in which direction the descent to the Cabanne lay. But, for the life of me, I could not locate the trail I had taken up. Perhaps with a bit more time it would have presented itself, but instead I followed the blazes for the HRP, which took me much further north and west from where I wanted to be, and probably added a half hour to my descent. No matter - i got down without any further trouble.

As I passed the Cabanne d'Ardinet and re-entered the trees, I turned my back on the mountains. I have now done five solid hikes in five days, and really am ready to hang up my boots for a bit. Plus, on the last mile or two of walking through the woods, the thought that had crept up during every hike became dominant: Hilary really ought to be here to do this with me. Next time, I suppose.

Tonight it was a smorgasbord or leftovers, build up over the previous week by Paul's excellent cooking. He has been doing many of the local dishes which, while delicious, are quite heavy. But for that, I'm sure I could have dropped 10 lbs on this trip!

Tomorrow morning we are packing up and heading out. It's the first step on the way home to see Hilary and little B! But before I fly out, we have a day and a half in Barcelona!

Chemin de la Mâture

Today's outing: a climb up the fabled Chemin de la Mâture, a very curious construction of geography, man, and war. Then we come up over the Col d'Arras, and looping back down to where we began at the Pont de Cebers parking area.

First, the geography: the Chemin is a deep, narrow gorge in the rock. The man: Louis XV. War: France had a substantial navy in the 18th century, and needed tall, straight trees to provide masts for such trees. More geography: this region of France had such tall straight trees. What was lacking was a way to get them from where they were happily growing tall and straight to where they would be turned into masts for warships. Some idiot decided that this gorge would be a fine way to get the trees from up high down to the Aspe river, where they could be floated downstream and made good use of. The problem, however, was that the gorge has near-vertical, very high walls, and so getting the trees down was a little difficult.

The solution: carve a walkway into the gorge, span it with logs and ropes, and send the 100-foot logs right down the middle of the chasm. Brilliant! If you say so:



It is difficult to convey in words and pictures how terribly exposed we were during the hour-or-so ascent. The walkway was mostly only 1-2 meters wide, and paved with crushed/broken/exploded stone. In other places the underlying carved rock poked through, and had been polished smooth by the boots of many passing walkers. Trip, stumble, or slide over the edge of the walkway and nothing would stop you from a fatal 500-foot fall. What is more, the path lies on the northern wall of an east-west gorge, meaning that we were in the full sun for the entire ascent. It was much like ascending to the rim of a very steep canyon in the American Southwest (Zion comes to mind), complete with the heat and little scurrying lizards.

After reaching the top of this harrowing stretch, we had a lovely 1/2-km hiking on a gentle slope, under stately trees, hearing the river below, upon a rockless dirt-track covered with the remains of years of leaves. Compared to the decidedly uneven and rocky paths we have scrambled on this week, it was like strolling through shag carpet!

After this lovely break, we turned a corner and headed back up towards the Col d'Arras. It was difficult to know when we arrived. After heading up and up, we emerged from the trees and had views of the gorge we had been struggling up earlier, though now a few hundred meters higher. We could also see back to the Gave d'Aspe and, on further to the west, the slopes I had descended down to Borce two days ago. The trail flattened out and eventually started down, with narry a sign or landmark that would indicate that, yes, you have arrived at the Col.

Wait, now you guys put up a fence? WTF?!

After this somewhat disappointing high-mark on the hike, we began our descent. Unlike most of the walks we have done so far this trip, we did not simply turn around and go back the way we had just come (a good thing, neither of us fancied going down Chemin de la Mâture). We actually had a loop to do today.

The route down was, thankfully, also under the cover of trees. However, the trail was rather steep and rocky - reminiscent of hikes in the Whites. After losing most of our elevation, it ran into a small road that services some of the small farms in the area. This we followed back down to the trailhead we had started at. But, with over an hour until Holly was supposed to meet back up with us, we decided to hoof it back into Etsaut, to the cafe we stopped at two days ago, and have a beer while we waited. Not ten minutes after we sat down, Holly swung through, saw, us, and joined us.



There is one last hike in the area that Mark has scoped out: an ascent of Pic d'Anie. However, he's been battling off a cold for the last few days, and hiking. So, it is up to this young whipper-snapper to take a crack at it.

Ansabère

The day's hike was to get driven to the trailhead at Pont Masousa and hike up to the Cabanne Ansabère. From there we would push up the ravine just south of Petite Aiguille and just over the border into Spain before heading back.

Yeah, we get it. Wow!

The first section of the hike is along a rough road up to Pont Lamary, and then on to the Cabanne itself (hey, the need to get the cheese down somehow).

Some distance after Pont Lamary we came to a pasture with lots of livestock. Ahead we could see the Aiguille peaks: Petite on the left, Grande on the right. These are excellent rock climbs for those who can.

The Cabanne is like many Huts in the White Mountains, except that it is the quarters for the shepherds during the season. These guys apparently make some cheese up here and offer it for sale. Alas, there was no one home, so they missed out on a sale.

The Cabanne is located at the bottom of a large bowl. There is a very large pile of boulders and other debris just uphill from it, which I suppose means that they are just outside the zone for serious avalanches and rock fall. Still, why chance it? Single photos alone cannot describe the scale and verticality of the space around here. I'll work on some panoramas when I'm back at my computer in the States.

We headed up those slopes to towards the Col above the Cabanne and just next to Petite Aiguille. Turns out there was a trio climbing it today (right between the two main fingers of rock, but not visible in this image).

The trail sloped steeply upward along the abundant scree. After a climb of over 500 meters, it abruptly leveled off and presented us with a broad moonscape of shattered rock. A little ways beyond, we saw a sign of two that were the only indication that we had crossed over into Spain.

In my most awful accent, I strung together a bit of Spanish to ask a nearby couple "Aqui esta la frontera, si?" They assured me that, yes, I had arrived.

Although it was quite cool and windy at the pass, the heat from the bowl had turned Mark's crunch bar into Goo de Nestle.

After not very long at the pass, we turned around and started the steep and slidy way back down. Over the next 1-1/2, we would descend nearly 1100 meters - our feet were aching.

We passed plenty of grazing livestock on this trip: cows, sheet, and horses. This ram's horns make me wonder if he ever has trouble getting low enough to the ground.

We passed this car on the way up. Little did we know it would be so popular with the locals.

This evening we are hosting a dinner for some local British grad students. We had met them fishing around in Lac de Lhurs for a lost datalogger, and are headed back to London tomorrow. Being vegetarian, we will be having a markedly different cuisine from the past couple of (meat and animal-fat heavy) dinners. No matter, we are all well acquainted with vegetarian cooking.

Lhers, Barrancq, and Borce

Our originally planned hike for the day was held off - Mark was feeling a cold coming on yesterday and wanted to rest today to beat it off.

Still when I looked outside the window this morning and strode the terrace and saw only blue sky I felt the need to get out.

After consulting the map and guide books I came up with a plan. The main hiking route through the French Pyrenees is the GR10. It goes right through town, across the valley to a small plateau and the town of Lhers, up and over the ridge that forms the southern border of the Cirque, and down the other aide to the small strip of buildings that is the village of Borce, which is wedged against the Aspe river, which parallels the main north-south road in the region. This segment from Lescun to Borce is a moderate day for a thruhiker. Many go a bit farther and cross the Aspe to the equally small village of Etsaut.

Lhers is verdant flat area directly across the valley from where we are staying. When we hiked the local Belvedere walk two day ago, we had an excellent view of it. By hopping a ride from the others and being delivered to the trailhead in Lhers, we all got the reverse view of Lescun, and I skipped an hour or two of preliminary hiking.

I got dropped off at the designated trailhead and set off around noon. I kept a look out for red and white stripes: the blazes that signify the GR10. After a promising start and one such blaze, the trail became a quagmire - a thin track with brambles on either side, and steady stream of water, and muck of who knows what kind underfoot. Re-reading the trail instructions, I knew I needed to start heading uphill and, seeing a break leading up, started moving that way.
A hundred feet on the way, this steep climb became impossible. The ground was soft underneath, and steep, and I was wading through a dense forest of grass and 3-foot tall ferns. Deciding thy this could not, in fact, be one of the prominent trails of the whole continent, I headed back down and tried the muck sluice again.

The muck panned out, eventually, into a farmers field with a beaten dirt path. Following it to the fenceline, I was greater with a red-white blaze: I had regained the trail!

An so I began the ascent for real: switchbacks up a sun-beaten slope up and up, merging with a rough-hewn logging road, branching off, merging with another. Below me, viewing off to the north, was most of the cirque. I could at times see Lescun. I was able to find the cleft we ascended to reach Lac de Lhurs the day before. With the scree, the dusty trail, the low vegetation, the heat and sun, the smell and sight of livestock, the countryside reminded me of places I had been in the American Southwest, although much greener and less arid.

Up and up, with never a downward step, until I crested the Col de Barrancq, at which point the trail would start heading down. But in had been in the trees for a bit, and wanted the views from the ridge I had just reached. Following a trail along the ridge, I soon broke out into a sloped pasture. This trail heading up the ridge is not part of the GR10, but rather a side trail that, after another few miles and 2000 ft of elevation, reaches Pic de Labigouer. That would have been a gorgeous hike under other circumstances. It is an exposed trail out on the ridge, with no place to retreat to in case of injury of weather. Plus, I was hiking solo in unfamiliar territory. It would have been a much longer hike than I had planned for, and I was running on a deadline: I had made arrangements to get picked up at the bridge into Etsaut at 5, which allowed me book time for the route plus about a half hour. I had already consumed most of that slack time mucking around the trailhead.

But I am a swift hiker, so I figured I could spare a little time and get up a bit higher on the ridge. Twenty minutes of steep uphill got me high enough on the ridge to be above all the trees and have a nearly 360-degree view. Near to me on the east and west the ridge dropped away steeply.

To the west I could easily pick out the major peaks of the area: Pic d'Anie, Table des Trois Rois, and the several peaks of Ansibere. I could also see all the way back to where I had started in Lhers and, if I had binoculars, the house we were staying at in Lescun. To the east were new ranks of mountains whose names I knew not.


Having spent too much time in sightseeing and refueling, I lengthened my trekking poles and took my first steps of a loooong charging descent. The trail downward passed in an out of the pasture before returning to the forest.

Along the way I saw a bush that had clearly been set ablaze (what, no prophet?), the ruins of an old cabane, a herd of grazing cows and sheep, and a few new farm buildings.

Didn't I see these rocks in Lord of the Rings?


In the woods more strange sights awaited. I found this tree with a deep cleft - possibly two trees that had merged and separated. Where the trunks parted, in a saddle of deep moss, was a short conifer sapling.

The trail exited the woods and come out onto the open slope of a steep gully. I lost many hundreds of meters in switchbacking through more fern-forest under a baking sun. I could see Borce below, and hear traffic on the main road. But it was still far below, and I could not have gone quickly if I wanted to - the trail was too narrow, and my feet too worn, for fast trail running.

I passed yet another visual wonder: a tree that had clearly been hit by lightning and eviscerated by the blast. Despite the fact that 2/3 of the trunk had been cleaved off, despite the charring around the edges, what still stood was most definitely alive!

As the ravine settled out the trail merged with a twisty road that led down to the village. As I had been able to see the village from on high for most of the last hour, I was growing increasingly frustrated with each plodding footstep on pavement. Can I please be down now!? Eventually, of course, I was, and took a stroll down the main drag (the only drag?) of Borce.

Another footpath took me down farther and onto a footbridge that crossed over the valley highway, followed by a short stretch alongside the road. I walked across the bridge to Etsaut just a minute or two after the local church rang 5:00. But there was no one there! After all my worry about arriving in time, there was no one to chastise me for being a minute late. After a few minutes waiting, I took a stroll down the main drag (the only drag?) to Etsaut to a cafe/post office/convenience store, figuring I would have a beer and wait. As I approached I saw the car with my companions, who had been seriously mislead in Borce about where to find the bridge.

And so went my solo hike in the Pyrenees. All in all a good time. Paul asked me how the pain-to-reward ratio worked out on this one. It would have been better had I not had the confusion at the beginning. After a few days of clouds and cool temperatures, I had no reckoned on being out in the hot sun half the day. An actual summit would have tipped the scales nicely as well. But I saw a number of wondrous things and had a nice bit of quiet hiking that avoided disaster. So I'll count that a pretty good day.

The day was made still nicer once we returned to town. We had made reservations two days before to eat at a local restaurant. We had to make the reservations so early because they are a small operation, and only purchase and cook a set menu each night for confirmed customers. We sat outside and watched the shadows creep up the hillsides, until only the peaks were illuminated. Could it be much finer?

Lac de Lhurs

No lolligagging this morning, kids, out of bed! Pack your daypacks and lace your boots! Down to the local store for croissants and pain-chocolat. Today we have ourselves a plan, a goal, a destination. We would hike from the edge of town up to the head of the cirque and on to a high lake called Lac de Lhurs.

The first section of the hike follows some rough dirt roads and took us through the last flat areas of the cirque before climbing towards the headwall. It is deceptive from the map, and certainly from when viewed from below, but this is excellent farmland. It helps explain how it is that such a remote village came to be settled in the first place. Bucolic? I'm expecting Bilbo Baggins to hop out at any moment.

Although the land is verdant, it is used largely for raising livestock: sheep for the most part, but also cows, horses, and a few goats. And although a flock or two were around (just listen for the calypso band of bells floating on the breeze), for the most part not many animals were evident. For as far off the beaten path as this place it, these are merely the winter pastures. Right now most of the livestock are higher up in the mountains in the summer pastures. The land below is used for raising some crops, but mostly for raising fodder for the winter months.

For the most part, folks have long ago made peace with the fact that, with landscape as steep it is, the only way to get anywhere is to use switchbacks. This is in stark contrast to the White Mountains, where trails are content to shoot straight up riverbeds and gullies. Nevertheless, the going was steep in places.

As we got higher, the geology of the place made itself more apparent. For while the lower areas are crumbly shards of sedimentary rock, the higher reaches are made of somewhat harder stuff. This is good, because otherwise there would be no mountains here at all, and it would have all washed down ages ago.

The farther and higher we climbed, the green fields below were lost to view, and our eyes were drawn to the grey and green heights above. The clouds never fully cleared, and so the sheer rock and sharp peaks played peekabo for the whole hike.

It's mostly limestone in these parts, with some granite mixed in. The presence of limestone explains the many striations and grooves - created by runoff over millenia.

The rock is shot through in many places with inclusions of quartz and other minerals. In some places these serve just as a place for the other rock to flake off. In other places, like this, it just makes a very nice contrast.

We ascended steadily up and up. The final push was across a ravine that, during spring thaw, would be a torrent with spring runoff. At its head and over a little rise we finally reached the glacial bowl that holds Lac de Lhurs. At this time of year, the Lac is quite low, which explains why the outlet was dry. Like a bathtub ring, you can see the usual height of the spring melt. The bowl about is similar to Tuckerman Ravine with Hermit Lake, though the materials are completely different. No trees reach up here - it is all grass, moss, flowers, and a few coniferous shrubs. Alas, although the views out and up are nice, the Lac itself and the nearby slopes are (especially under cloudy skies) a bit drab and depressing.

The rock has been assaulted over the ages with wind, rain, cold, snow, and glaciers, and like so many mountain ranges on Earth has plenty of scree.

But we were hardly alone here. Even before we reached the lake, we passed through this flock of sheep (at their summer pasture! Mon Dieu!). This breed is particularly long in face. Their wool, if it is used at all, must need a terrible amount of washing and carding to be workable.

We also met this lone donkey. He was very interested in Paul, hoping desparately to get some lunch. Paul pulls out some bread, and the donkey begins a plaintive bray. Paul pulls out a carrot, and the donkey starts to drool. Ever hopeful, he and Jasper could be good friends.

There were people here as well. Other hikers, sure, but also a few folks fishing from shore! The Lac is stocked with trout. We also met a few British researchers, one of whom was up past her knees in the water, reaching deep to pull up rocks. They have a datalogger of some sort in the Lac, and were trying to retrieve it. But, due to a wet spring and summer, the Lac was higher than usual at this time, hence the fishing around in freezing water!

On the way down, the cloud deck descended with us, so that by the time we regained the car and cruised back into the village, we could see little of the heights we had so recently been on. As we descended, I filled a Nalgene from my pack with the abundant blackberries growing in brambles that cropped up here and there on either side.

Our next planned hike it to the summit of the nearest peak overlooking the cirque: Pic d'Anie. However, we have encountered a consistent pattern of clouds on the heights, especially in the afternoon. So we'll have to wait and see: it would be awful to climb this picturesque peak and not be able to enjoy the view!