L'escolan
Décidément, ça bouge sur le GR10 dans l’Ariège. Apres l’ouverture du nouveau gîte-auberge « La maison du Valier » en voici un autre qui a lui aussi l’air sympa, le gîte d’étape « l’Escolan » près d’Ustou.
Posts Tagged ‘Ariège’
Ariège avec un grand “A”
Wednesday, December 28th, 2011Randonnée dans l’Ariège
Friday, November 18th, 2011
Refuge du Rulhe sur le GR10
Je reprends quelques infos du site du Refuge du Rulhe.
Le Soula
Le gîte d’étape “Le Soula” n’existe plus à Mérens. Par contre, Jackie et Henri Vidal vous accueillent au Gîte d’étape, chambres d’hôtes du Nabre ou 05 61 01 89 36.
Aménagement du GR10
Crête de Llasse, Pyrenees
Avant, entre le Refuge du Rulhe et Mérens, le GR10 n’était pas au top. Le chemin n’était rien d’autre que de vagues égratignures à la surface d’immenses blocs de pierre. Il y avait des cairns aussi bien que des balises, mais ils étaient trop mélangés dans ce paysage lunaire rouillé. Sautant, glissant, trébuchant, on était assez vite rompu.
Eh ben, une grande nouvelle ! Vincent Sabadie, à la demande du Conseil Général de l’Ariège, s’y est attaqué. Vincent nous a ouvert un nouveau sentier qui contourne l’Etang Bleu, en empruntant un itinéraire linéaire sous les Gazalassis qui ressort en haut de la Crête de Llasse. Un grand merci !
A shepherdess in the 1970s: part I
Thursday, December 16th, 2010The best of times, the worst of times
The refuge at Esbintz, October 2010
I first met Gila Chevillon when I was walking the GR10, at the hostel she now runs at Esbintz (also known as Esbints) in the Ariège. In the evening she fed us a copious couscous. Sitting in her stone flagged kitchen at an immensely solid wooden table, there were several walkers and a young woman who wanted to be a shepherdess. She had come to work with Gila’s husband Francis for a few weeks. So the conversation centred around Gila’s early experiences as a shepherdess in the estive, the pastures high up in the mountains, where the sheep go for their summer holidays.
“That year was exceptional. It isn’t normally like it was for me, and isn’t like that now,” she insisted. “When I started in 1979 there were no shepherdesses. It wasn’t the done thing for a young woman to go up into the mountains on her own. What would an honest woman be doing up there with all those lonely virile shepherds? I overheard some remarks when I went to the market. I could have been upset, but it was too ridiculous. I decided to laugh them off.”
Previously she had taught biology and physical education in a secondary school in Germany. “At that time, I had plenty of money, everything that I wanted, but I didn’t want to live like everyone else. I wanted adventure. Up there, being in the mountains, was an adventure. I had a little French but I knew nothing about the Ariège and less about farming. It was wonderful and terrible all at the same time.”
The next day I continued my walk towards the Mediterranean, but I wanted to find out more so I arranged to meet her again. (more…)
A shepherdess in the 1970s: part II
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
Sheep at Esbintz, recently returned from the estive
On sheep in the Pyrenees
Intelligence
Sheep are born meteorologists. There was the time when Gila was in Spain and the sheep insisted on heading for home, knowing that it was going to snow. And at their current estive Gila and her husband know it is going to rain, even if the sky is clear, when the neighbour’s sheep come over the pass.
“A sheep is lost when it is on its own, but as a flock they are very clever. One of our neighbours changed mountain but the sheep found their way back to the old estive. Without ever having passed there before, they cut across the high mountain slopes to get to their usual pasture.” (more…)
Running with the pack – dog sledding in the Pyrenees
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
David and one of the huskies
Imagine sitting on the comfortable seat of a fairy-tale Christmas sleigh. The nodding reindeer glide across the gentle hills, only the quiet swish of the parting snow disturbing the winter calm. A red-and-white fur coat keeps out the chill.
No. It’s not like that.
Imagine, instead, a top of the range Harley Davidson motorbike. Imagine also – I know that this is will be difficult – that this machine, for which you have paid thousands of pounds, has two major faults. The throttle is permanently stuck down; and the handlebars won’t turn. Oh, and there is no seat either.
When I arrive at the Plateau de Beille, south of Carcassonne in the French Pyrenees, it is surprisingly quiet: no wind, no cars, and almost no people. It is just a few degrees above zero. The road has been cleared since the last snowfall two weeks ago and the pine trees have lost their covering, but everywhere else is blindingly white.
David, one of the two mushers at the Base Angaka, opens the gate to the compound where the dogs are kept. They are individually attached to metal stakes by heavy chains, just long enough to allow them to rub noses and just short enough to prevent them from fighting. There are twenty-seven of them altogether; cross-bred huskies from Siberian and Greenland stock.
659,200 lawnmowers
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
This is not a sheep
At the beginning of summer, as the snow melts and the vegetation awakes, yawning, stretching its arms, turning slowly from yellow to green, the lawnmowers are trundled out of their winter storage, for four months of intensive activity in the sunshine. According to a 1999 survey, there are 659,200 of them in the Pyrenees.
According to the farmers these are not lawnmowers, but real live sheep and cows which they are taking up to the estives, rough pasture at 1400m to 2200m above sea level. But in the parallel world of the authorities, these are full-time lawnmowers and snow ploughs. In the evening and at weekends they moonlight as care workers for disabled shepherds. Some are museum curators. In this world, they are there to cut the grass. They are there to reduce avalanches. They are there to help overcome the handicap of living in the mountains. And they are there to ensure the continuity of a traditional lifestyle. This is why the authorities pay out grants. (more…)
Nothing has changed?
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
There has been a sheep market in Tarascon since at least 1158
At the end of September every year, for the last 851 years at least, there has been a livestock fair in Tarascon in the Ariège département in the Pyrenees. This year the sheep seem to be exclusively tarasconnais – the breed being named after the town – with impressive corkscrew horns. A farmer climbs over a hurdle, picks up the back leg of one and inspects her belly. She is heavily pregnant, like nearly all her sisters. Only a couple of concave mothers are already suckling their weak-legged lambs. The farmer offers 75 Euros per sheep. The seller refuses. “77,” he insists. The farmer moves on. The sheep hide their heads from the sun under the flanks of their neighbours. The air smells feisty, of sweat, wool and sheep shit. Here, apparently, nothing has changed for centuries.
