August 2009. The name means the “lost mountain” and Mont Perdu – Monte Perdido in Spanish – is about as far as you can get from a road in the Pyrenees. Some early geographers thought it was the highest in the range and it took the pioneering Ramond several attempts to get to the summit. Even though it has now been relegated to third in the height tables, it is still a challenge. We could have taken the Spanish route – a 4-hour slog, climbing up the 1200m from the Goriz refuge in the babbling company of dozens of other walkers on a well-worn path. But we wanted to experience nature in silence, and walk along the empty moonscape ridge of the Cirque de Gavarnie. And we wanted a challenge.

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