Shepherd’s hut at Peyrehitte, above Bagnères-de-Luchon

The French government had promised 180 000 euros for building and renovating a dozen shepherds’ huts spread across the French Pyrenees. But, according to Ariège News the cuts have put an end to the programme.

The poster is for the 2012 film Baztan, directed by Iñaki Elizalde, filmed in and around Elizondo in the Spanish Basque country. I passed through the town last summer, walking the Senda (Spanish GR11). The poster stretched the whole height of the wall on one side of the main square.

The director claims that the locals were enthusiastic about the filming, despite its central thesis of multi-secular discrimination against the agotes ingrained in local culture; discrimination which continued well into the 20th century.

Who were the agotes? Nobody seems to know. They were neither a religious nor an ethnic group. They are variously cited as descendants of Goths, lepers, Moorish soldiers, misshapen cretins. Whoever they were, they were up to no good. Once an agote, always an agote. Agotes were obliged to marry each other and marriage and baptismal registers kept track of who was who. They were despised and marginalised. Bozate, 5km from Elizondo was an agote ghetto. A popular saying was: “Al agote, garrotazo en el cogote – An agote? Club him on the neck” [source]

The film hasn’t been widely distributed so I haven’t yet seen it…

Collioure in the sun

It is still windy, and winter is still digging in its heels, but today in Collioure, the sun is summer bright. Perpignan has come for a day out, sitting in the shelter of the town walls, on the warm stone benches, crowding into the restaurants.

Square picture frames in rusty iron indicate to us tourists where the best photographs are to be had, just like those set up on the Costa Brava to celebrate 100 years of tourism.

Collioure could be a definition of Mediterranean colour: ochre, pale yellows, strong blues. They must be the same colours seen by Matisse, Derain and Dufy a century ago but the fauves were living in a different universe. Here are the “Roofs of Collioure”, as seen by Matisse.

I walked from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Irun last year as part of my Camino walk. On the 23 Aug this year (2012) I started the GR10 in St Jean and finished (because of other commitments) in Bolquère on Thursday 27 Sept. I walked alone.

It was absolutely amazing. I’ve never done mountains before and am less than three years doing any walking. Came very close to finishing it. I had intense heat, lightning, a fierce wind of almost 120km per hour on the ridge just before Refuge de Rulhe (it lasted a terrifying three hours), cold, hail, sleet, snow and ice.

I did not use a tent but brought a small gas stove and stayed in about 6 cabanes, some refuges and the rest gîtes and a hotel one night. Cost excluding flight but including train to Cahors and Carcassonne to meet friends 1580 euros for six weeks.

It was tough going but worth it I will finish it next year and then may turn around and do the GR11 in opposite direction from east to west.

I used a harness to wear a Nikon d80 SLR camera, so I am now starting the long edit of many photos. May have exhibition next year with the photographs I have done earlier in the year of the Via de la Plata and Le Puy en Veley to Cahors.

Yes I took your advice and did the Vignemale loop, it was great.

Thanks again for your advice and encouragement.

Le Pic du Midi d’Ossau

Fort du Portalet

Chardon bleu

Between Gabas and Gourette

Near Arrens-Marsous

Oulettes de Gaube

Vignemale

Gave d’Ossoue

Near Barèges

Lac d’Aumar

Bentaillou Mine

Marbled fritillary

Waterfall

Dermot at the Cabane Taus du Valier

Eastern Ariège near Andorra

Near les Bésines

Near les Bouillouses

I’ve been wondering for some time how the Pyrenees will face up to global warming and Santaigo Mendieta’s book is just what I have been looking for. It’s not all bad news.

In fact it is two books in one. On the one hand, the eternal mountains of the photos: despite the impressive photos showing just how much the glaciers have retreated, there are still crimson sunsets, splashing waterfalls, gloomy forests and immaculate fields of snow. And on the other hand, there are the changing mountains of the text, with the figures on global warming, the diminishing fertility of the fish, and trees marching north, invading the plains. Nothing will ever be the same again.

The statistics which most impressed me? The conclusion that in the mountains the isotherm is rising by 3 metres a year. And on the plain, in order to find the same average temperature, you have to move northwards 1–3km.

On the Aneto, 2012

Glaciers have become a symbol of what is happening in the Pyrenees and further afield. In 2000 Moraine, an association dedicated to studying them, found 44 which covered an area of more than 2 hectares. By 2007 there were only 12.

Marmotte

And what about the animals? Marmottes, bears, wolves, isards, deer, vultures: how are they going to react? In theory they are very adaptable. In any case we humans have been managing them for some time. They may live in the wild, but they are not as wild as all that. If their populations are in general increasing, it’s thanks to man and not to climatic change.

Even so certain species remain threatened, the rock ptarmigan (Lagopus mutus) and the capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), for example.

Forest in the Spanish Pyrenees, gaining ground because of the decline in sheep farming

Les Pyrénées à la croisée des climats is a book which covers many aspects of the mountains, an inventory of the present and a warning for the future. Despite the alarming predictions it is a pleasure to read such a well-documented book full of magnificent photos.

On the ridge. The Hospice de France can just be seen under the clouds in the valley.

We sleep well. Leaving the Hospice de France at 8h00, we climb up the side of the valley, crossing lush meadows then walk along a ridge to the pass at the Puerto de la Picada and into Spain. It’s steep in places but there are no tricky bits, so it has been used by pilgrims, merchants, and shepherds for centuries.

La Renclusa

From the pass we can see the Renclusa hostel on the other side of the valley, with the Aneto massif and its glacier bib above.

The best view of the mountains is from here on the north side of the valley. The Aneto is the highest peak on the left, the Renclusa hostel just behind our shoulders, and the Portillon supérior at the top of the diagonal ridge just below the snowline.

Renclusa hostel

It’s an easy walk down to the café near the river and up again. The hostel manager tells us: “We have reserved the bridal suite for you.” There are six of us, so I expect to be somewhat squashed, but the room has three bunk beds and an en-suite bathroom. Luxury!

Aneto

At 4:00 the next morning the alarm goes off and by 5:00 we are on the doorstep with our guide, Narcís. Apart from Venus shining brightly there is no other light outside. We turn on our head torches.

It’s a long scramble over huge blocks. There is nothing that can really be described as a path, making progress slow, but the eerie dawn is fascinating. Candyfloss-pink swirls of mist escape from the rocks and dissolve into the sky.

Portillon supérior with the Aneto (centre)

By 7:30 we are at the Portillon supérior. The Aneto, which has been hidden until now, appears on the other side of the ridge. There is some more chaos to cross, and then we arrive at the edge of the glacier. The rope, crampons and ice axes are extracted from our rucksacks.

I had expected the glacier to be slippery like it was last time, but it is the beginning of July and not the beginning of September. The ice is covered with snow. We walk through wispy clouds which alternately hide and reveal the view. Sometimes the snow seems blue, sometimes pinkish grey – anything but white. The mountains below us, however, are all different shades of blue.

Glacier

At 11 o’clock we arrive at the foot of the Pas de Mohammed. It has taken us three and a half hours to walk the 3.3km and climb the 500m from the Portillon supérior, including breaks. Not too quick, not too tiring, not too worrying.

The final few metres are another story

Looking back towards the Portillon supérior from the bottom of the Pas de Mohammed. Our route back passes down the valley on the right of the photo.

We arrive back at the Renclusa twelve hours after we left.

Back to France

Boums (lakes) and the Vénasque hostel

Next day we go back to the Hospice de France by a different path, passing through the Puerto de Benasque, drinking coffee in the sun outside the Refuge de Vénasaque and then disappearing into the mist in the valley until just before the Hospice.

Heading into the mist

Hospice de France

After visiting Bagnères de Luchon, our next stop is the Hospice de France, where we are staying for the night. Reopened in 2009, the building originated as a staging post for pilgrims heading for Santiago de Compostela, then became a hostel for trekkers like us heading for the Aneto and the Maladeta.

Like the museum in Luchon, the hostel contains a poignant relic of the Pyrenees. It is also a question of death, in this case murder. The weapon is on display in the hostel dining room; we have already seen the corpse in Luchon, keeping Barrau company. The weapon is a collar and chain; the victim a bear cub.

The cub (and his sister) were found near the Hospice de France and brought back there “where they were welcomed with a bottle of milk.” (La Dépêche du Midi, 27 May 1952).

“And afterwards they killed them!”

Bear cub in Luchon museum

The scribbled sentence, at the bottom of the article from the Dépêche du Midi and still visible when I last visited the museum, has since been removed. But it’s true that the bears were killed. At that time nobody knew how to deal with orphaned bear cubs. As a visitor to the Hospice remarked: “The animal [the female], tied up like a farmer’s dog, is bored stiff… She has dug so many holes in the stony earth. She stands up and then hides, morbidly unhappy” (Stéphan Carbonnaux, Le cercle rouge – Voyages naturalistes de Robert Hainard dans les Pyrénées, p. 33). The cubs died soon afterwards.

The treatment of the two bear cubs presaged the treatment of the remaining Pyrenean bears in the wild. They simply died from neglect.

Don’t get me wrong. There are still bears in the Pyrenees. It is just that there are no Pyrenean bears. The introduction of bears from Slovenia in 1996 put paid to the genetic isolate. The Pyrenees have become a showcase for foreign bears. Like the stuffed bear cub in the Luchon museum they are a symbol of the past rather than a hope for the future.

The walk on Google Earth

[Day 1: purple – Day 2: green – Day 3 yellow]

[GPX files 1 Mb]

We are going to climb the Aneto, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees (3404m), but there are a couple of things we want to see before we put our boots on.

Our first stop is in Bagnères de Luchon, at the shrine devoted to Pierre Barrau. Barrau was one of the first guides to attempt the glaciers surrounding the Aneto; his untimely death was to put its conquest back by 20 years. Subsequently one of his legs became an object of veneration. It is not to be missed.

Barrau died in 1824. He had been engaged to take two clients up the nearby Maladeta, but he fell into a crevasse at the top of the glacier. For ten minutes he cried: “I’ve had it,” before disappearing. He was highly respected for his mountaineering skills and his death shocked locals. For generations they would point to the mountain saying “He’s there, poor Barrau.”

The miracle which led to his canonization and the construction of the shrine is that he continued to walk even after his death, heading slowly home. After 107 years he had progressed 1400m when walkers discovered him lying at the bottom edge of the glacier. He was brought back and buried, or at least most of him was. The leg bone appeared three years later. It now lies, finally at rest, along with one of his crampons in a glass case in the Luchon museum.

So that’s what happens when you fall into a crevasse…

Barrau’s leg and crampon (left) with other early mountaineering equipment

Sur le Pas de Mohammed

Everyone knows that walking is controlled falling. In learning to walk we learn to overcome our fear of falling. We soon forget the bumps on the head and the bruises on the knees, but somewhere lurking around in the unconscious that primal fear is still there. I have just rediscovered it.

Vertigo

It’s like being inside a spin dryer but it’s not me that’s spinning. It’s the world outside which is turning round and round. So this is what vertigo is like.

I used to think I knew something about vertigo. Fear of falling is logical, quite reasonable. You stand on the edge of a precipice. Of course you’re afraid! Of course you feel dizzy! But I was wrong. Fear of falling is a phobia; it’s not vertigo.

This is the real thing. Horribly different. I feel sick. I can’t move at all. The alarm goes off and I wake up. I turn my head to look at the time and it starts whiring all over again. So I was dreaming, but the nightmare has become reality. I don’t even contemplate getting out of bed.

Later the doctor tells me that I have all the symptoms of Ménière’s disease, problems with my inner ear. He gives me some tablets, and tells me to use my eyes to correct my sense of balance. “You’ll have to learn to walk again,” he explains. A neighbour tells me that her husband had the same problem intermittently for over twenty years before he died. It only stopped when he fell off the roof.

So what’s climbing the Aneto going to be like this time? Just before the summit there is a knife-edge ridge: the Pas de Mohammed. I used to be able to persuade myself that my feet were glued to the ground by immense gravitational forces. I’m not sure the strategy it will work any more.

The trip to the Aneto with my walking club is scheduled for the summer. I’m organising it, so I can’t really back out. In any case, a week later I seem to be cured.

Fast forward

;

[video of Spanish climbers on the Pas de Mohammed]

After a day and a half’s walking, climbing 2500m in the process, we finally get to the Pas de Mohammed. We take off our crampons and look up at the ridge. I’ve been here before so I have some idea what to expect, but it still seems abnormally steep and frighteningly sharp.

“I’ll take you up two by two,” says the guide. I am roped up with the most nervous member of the group, the one most likely to make a false move and project us into the void. Paradoxically this is the best thing that can happen to me: looking at his awkwardness I feel confident in comparison.

We circumnavigate a pyramid. The ends of my fingers are tingling. I concentrate. Look for holds. I have reduced my area of focus to a small zone around my hands and feet. Anything else is eliminated. I have created my bubble. As long as I can stay in it nothing can happen to me.

Don’t look down. Don’t listen to your inner ear. Shuffle along the ledge, sitting on it, one leg either side. Don’t look down. Clamber into the crevasse and out again. And that’s it. We slump down around the aluminium cross which adorns the summit, breathing heavily, smiling inanely. Now I can look around, way into the distance.

Why do I do this kind of thing? I know I’m going to be frightened, even though the Pas de Mohammed looks more dangerous than it really is and certainly isn’t considered rock climbing. Is it for the adrenalin rush? I hate it until it’s over; and then I want to do it again.

At the summit of the Aneto

The way down is a repetition of the way up, but now I am beginning to believe I can do it. Then there is a long, fast, joyous romp in the snow straight down the steepest slope. Where the snow gives way to rock we take our crampons off again and stride off happily.

But, inexplicably, I start tripping over. Once, twice. I get out my walking pole. It’s not difficult terrain but I keep falling. Three, four, five times. Somebody gives me another pole and after that things go better. At the time I put it down to tiredness, but now I’m not so sure.

Granary in Hiriberri. The staddlestones which support it are designed to stop rats from climbing in.

A new edition of the Prames guide to the GR11 has been published. Phew!

I’ve just come back from walking the GR11 from Hondarribia to Candanchú. My guidebook was hopelessly inaccurate. Like me, everybody had the same problem: our guidebooks – English, Spanish, French, whatever – showed one route and the waymarks showed another.

New GR11 route in Navarre

In fact the route between Auritz/Burguete and Otsagabia/Ochagavía was changed in January 2010. It no longer goes by Roncesvalles, the Fábrica de Orbiatzeta and the Casas de Irati. The new path takes a short cut, with a stopover at Hiriberri/Villaneuva de Aezkoa. Two day’s walking instead of three.

Hiriberri

The chapel of Nuestra Señora de Muskilda, just before arrving at Otsababia

More significantly there is accommodation in Hiriberri (a hotel/restaurant next to the church and various casas rurales – I recommend Maritxu). There are no public phones and no shops, but the bar near the entrance to the village will do you an evening meal and a sandwich for the next day. (It only opens at 20h00 and is remarkably anonymous, but does good food and is more friendly than the hotel/restaurant near the church.)

New waymarks

The other good news is that the waymarks have now been redone. The old guidebooks still talk about how rare they are. Here again they are way out of date. In the Spanish Basque Country and in Navarre you could almost follow the GR11 without a map: the waymarks and signposts are that good!

Postscript

I have just discovered an on-line guide to the GR11 in Navarre, published by la Federación Navarra de Deportes de Montaña y Escalada.