GR10 Days 11-12: Photos from the HRP Interlude

Soooo many photos from the days on the HRP. It was definitely the highlight of the trip and I would recommend it as an alternative route to anyone. Aside from the aesthetic attractions, and it being 10 miles shorter and 1200m of ascent less than the GR10 route (slow going, mind, due to the terrain), we later encountered two other GR10ers who absolutely cursed the Gabas-to-Grouette section which we omitted by having taken this route.  I’ll try to keep the narrative (relatively) short as I’ve included so many piccies from these three days:

Day 11:

Refreshed (or not) from our 3.5 hours sleep, off we set to go over the col to the south of the Pic du Midi d’Ossau, which, as you might expect, gave us some excellent, close-up views of this impressive peak:

The boulder field on the way up housed a family of marmots, giving me my first opportunity of the trip to say “There’s a marmot over there!” (for completely uninteresting reasons which date back to the PTC, it has to be said in a certain tone of voice). The fella in this snap posed nicely for us:

Food was an issue on this leg as we had knowingly undersupplied on the basis that we could eat in some refuges as we went along. That was all very well in theory, but did depend on hitting the refuges at an appropriate time of day. Fortunately, at Refuge Pombie they recognised that I was so hungry that any passing scabby dog was in danger, so they whipped up this spag bol for us at 11am. Unfortunately, the angle from which I took the snap doesn’t show quite how much food there was:

It fuelled us nicely for a big descent followed by a big ascent, followed by a bit of faffing around deciding whether to take the Passage d’Orteig or not. It’s not the most flattering photo of Mick, but if you look really, really closely you can pick out the wire going off into the distance:

There were no photos from further along this section as there was no way I was getting the camera out when my hands could be better employed by holding on! What we couldn’t see, in the conditions, was how big a drop there was to our left (in fact, I didn’t even take a single glance left on the whole of the time we were on this section). So, I got home and Googled to see what we’d missed; this next photo lifted from Google Images confirmed that I wouldn’t have liked to have done the passage in good weather! (As it went, I forfeited any right to complain about what we were doing when it was me who insisted we went this way; I couldn’t face another 1000’ of climbing, which is what would have been involved if we’d gone the other way):

When we got to the dam I knew that we were within a couple of minutes of the refuge which marked the end of our day but began to wonder if we would walk slap into the building before we saw it:

During a brief clearing of the murk during the late evening, I took the opportunity to take a quick snap of the location where we had ended up, but it didn’t open up enough for us to even see the lake adjacent to which we were pitched:

Day 12:

It was all rather different in the morning, when the cloud had gone! That grey thing across the bottom right of the photo is the tent fly-sheet. Yep, this was another photo taken from the comfort of my bed:

The view back over the refuge to the slope we had descended in the murk wasn’t too shoddy either:

After the drama of Jerry’s nose, a sedate walk along a lake, under a perfect blue sky was called for:

Then a walk above another lake, again under a perfect sky, along an engineered trackway:

Then we had to go for a bit of a trot, as Mick spotted that if we weren’t careful we were going to get stuck behind a large group of backpacking youngsters. Look carefully at this pic and you’ll see them stretching all the way from the bottom right corner, to the just above the centre of the snap. That’s a lot of people!

Now, how did this little bridge get damaged like that?

I think this next one illustrates quite well why the going was so slow over Days 11 and 12. The mileage for the two days added up to just 21 miles with just under 2500m of ascent, but because it wasn’t ‘stride out’ terrain, we were moving for approximately 15.5 hours to cover that distance.

This high lake, just before Col de la Fache, was still quite snowy…

…as was the steep scree slope we had to cross above it. In fact, it was the most significant snow we had to cross, although for us it was no problem as, being mid-afternoon, it was nice and soft:

There were some much bigger snow-fields later on, but they were horizontal, so no steep slide into a lake would have resulted from a slip here. These were the ones we walked across as slowly as we could, in an effort to cool down the over-heated feet (all those rocky paths do act as heat-stores on a hot day!):

Hmmm. No idea why I included this one, other than because it’s quite pretty:

Just above and to the right of Mick’s hat in this snap is Refuge Wallon, along the valley. We were really quite close, as the crow flies. Alas, as a touch of cruelty at the end of the day, the path wends its way down the hillside to Mick’s right, doubling right back to cross a bridge on the far right of the snap, before finally heading to the Refuge:

Day 12:

The Aire de Bivouac at Refuge Wallon is huge, but the riverbank is obviously the popular place, as we had plenty of neighbours that night (none of the three tents behind us was there when we pitched):

 

I hadn’t expected much from the walk down to Cauterets, so I was very pleasantly surprised by how picturesque it was. Someone we met later was rather uncomplimentary of their walk into the town, which I couldn’t initially understand, until I remembered that the way we’d walked in wasn’t the Cicerone GR10 route (as it goes, part of our route was on the GR10, but on a variant not used by the Cicerone guide):

So, all quite lovely, really

GR10 Days 8-10: Photos

Day 8

I recall the climb out of St Engrace as being unrelentingly uphill for around 1100m, before we dropped down to Arette-La-Pierre-St-Martin, which is a monstrosity of a ski resort sitting as an offensive juxtaposition to the spectacular surroundings. Somehow, I’ve managed to fail to capture the ugliness in this shot:

But hopefully these next few serve to give an inkling about how lovely the area surrounding the Pic D’Anie were:

The Cicerone guidebook describes the final ascent to the Pas de l’Osque (upon which I’m looking dreadfully elegant in the two snaps below) as an ‘easy scramble’. I would wholeheartedly agree: even with a pack on it was exceptionally simple. In amongst the updates on the Cicerone website there’s a comment that:

“The ‘easy scramble’ leading to the Pas de l’Osque is not in fact easy, as you need to use the cables to get up with a large pack.”

Other people we met shared that view. Based on my own experience I can only assume that those who find it difficult see the fixed wires and try to follow them, which (particularly for the first section) looked like it would give a more difficult route than the line I took, a little way away from the wires. I found a similar situation on some boulder fields, where a line a short way away from the waymarks/cairns gave much easier and faster passage than trying to follow the marked route:

Once we’d scrambled up this pass and gone a short way down the other side, after a cracking afternoon in gorgeous surroundings, we nearly stopped in the sunshine by a cabane. It was a nice spot, on the edge of a good stream … but it was also relatively early and very hot, so we continued on down, through and below the cloud, to pitch by a refuge where resided the loudest donkey in the whole world ever. It may not have been remote, but it was a very good pitch:

Day 9:

With the cloud having cleared overnight, we started Day 9 with an excellent view from the tent (this was taken from the comfort of my Thermarest, whilst I waited for water to boil):

Later in the day, and once over Col de Barrancq, and out of the trees, the view below is what greeted us. Quite impressive, would you not agree? Thus we’re not sure whether the two lads who stopped us and asked us where they would find the good view were taking the mick, or whether there was something lost in translation (perhaps there was a formal viewpoint nearby that they were seeking?).

Our first view of Borce/Etsaut in the valley below us. It was a long, steep descent to get there in hot and humid weather. A beeline was made for the local bar when we arrived, where we found not just cold drinks, but also a surprisingly well-stocked tiny shop:

Day 10:

We took lots of photos of the Chemin de la Mature, the incredible feat of engineering dating from 1772 that saw a trackway carved into an almost vertical rock face in order to retrieve wood suitable to supply the French Navy’s need for masts. The mind still boggles that there was no other, more easily accessible, suitable wood in the whole of France, but equally it didn’t just achieve a wood-retrieval route, but left a lasting legacy and a very interesting walking route:

Later in the day we passed into our first National Park, where we duly noted the restrictions on bivouacking (which, in French parlance, is what we were doing):

Hmmm, not sure why I included this photo, but as it’s here I’ll leave it in:

Our pitch that night broke all of the bivouacking rules (pitched at 3pm, close to a road and within 200m of the park boundary, rather than one hour away), but it did boast cracking views in all directions and nobody came to move us on (or, worse, fine us). You may notice, in this snap, how the clear plastic groundsheet protector is sticking out beyond the footprint of the tent. It’s a really bad idea to leave it like that – a fact that we know so well that it’s incredible that we forgot to tuck it in. What the protrusion achieved was that all water that ran off the tent fell onto the plastic and pooled under the tent. The result was much sogginess where pressure was applied to the base of the tent, such as under our thermarests and pillows. When the rain stopped briefly during the late evening, we nipped out and removed the groundsheet (I’m not sure why we even deployed it here; perhaps there was the risk of spikey stuff around; usually we only use it where the ground is abrasive), and retained a dry base for the rest of the night. Our only problem then became water slowly dripping from above during the horrible storm that had me conclude, at 2am, that I’m not cut out for backpacking (an opinion that, I’m pleased to say, was forgotten by the middle of the next day).

The Stereotype is Mandatory?!

I had to laugh when I saw this sign, as it was within a day or two of Conrad leaving a comment noting that I had referred more than once to ‘calling Mick back’ and saying that he couldn’t believe that I would fit the walking stereotype of the man always walking in front, with the woman a number of yards behind.

The evidence suggests that the man in this sign was modelled on Mick.

It seems to me that, per this sign, the man must go ahead. It also seems that the man should carry the whole of the load, leaving the woman pack-free ... I’ll have to work on that one.

As it goes, Mick does almost always walk ahead of me* (albeit I’m usually only a pace or two behind), and if I should by some circumstance find myself ahead, I will stand aside and let him pass. The reason behind this is simple and unrelated to gender**: I have absolutely no ability to maintain a steady pace and my slow-slow-quick-quick-slow style drives Mick mad when he’s behind me. The solution is for Mick (Mr Steady-Pace) to go ahead and act as pacemaker.

(*There are a few exceptions, all involving descent, where I’m so much faster that Mick prefers me to go ahead rather than tripping over his heels.

** Unless my inability to maintain a steady pace is related to being female, but I don’t think so.)

GR10–The Accommodation Experience

Perhaps more for my own records than by way of useful information for anyone else (although perhaps it will be of interest or value to someone), I’ve made some notes about the accommodation we used during our walk along the first half of the GR10, from Hendaye to Bagneres de Luchon. I’m using the term ‘accommodation’ a little loosely, to cover campsites, beds and anywhere else where we laid our heads.

The stats were that we spent five nights in beds (all in double rooms; never a dorm), five nights on campsites and ten nights camped for free, either wild-camping or on an aire de bivouac by a Refuge.

You’ll find the full set of notes by clicking here (if it looks a bit small to read then just click the magnifying glass at the top right once and it should become a good, readable size).

(Note: I’ve stated the prices excluding tourist tax. The tourist tax is based on the type of accommodation and the number of stars it has. At its lowest it was 20c per person per night (pppn). The most we paid (for the three star hotel) was €1pppn.)

GR10 Days 4-7: Photos

Day 4

Only one share-worthy photo from Day 4 – and that was taken at just after 7am in St Etienne de Baigorry, illustrating me looking like a D of E-er with stuff hanging off my pack (note too the long sleeves resulting from the accidental omission of left-arm suncream the previous day).What you see here is my pack with a pair of socks on the top, a pair of pants and a jay-cloth on the side, with a baguette poking out of the side pocket. We saw baguettes carried in many different ways in/on people’s backpacks; the ‘in the side pocket’ method wasn’t popular. I particularly liked the ‘in the middle of the bed roll, strapped to the outside of the pack’ method.

Day 5

St-Jean-Pied-de-Port was an interesting place and when we left the following morning, the hanging mist gave a nice effect to a ‘suburbs’ photo (at least, I thought so).

The gloriously shaded shale beach, alongside a deliciously cold stream, on the afternoon when my thermometer displayed 38 degrees. Just after this stream, the path went violently upwards, making an hour-long pause here very worthwhile (particularly as it clouded over and the temperature collapsed to a more reasonable 29 degrees whilst we were stopped):

This pitch doesn’t look too bad, does it? Next to a stream (only because we’d carried 3.5 litres of water apiece for the previous hour and a half) and nice and grassy. It wasn’t as good as it looked – it was on a bit of a slope and it was the only place of the trip where midges proved to be a pest.

The same pitch looking in the other direction. Fifty yards beyond the tent was a bowling-green piece of grass, but it was also next to a road, and I will always choose a less-than-ideal pitch over being next to a road:

Day 6

The very common sight of a cloud inversion, but always attractive to see:

I liked the spray painted thistles! Having called Mick back to admire this, the first one I spotted, we went on to see thousands of them over the following days:

The section of the GR10 we walked was incredibly well way-marked, such that it would be possible to walk it without maps (although, in my view not at all advisable, for a number of reasons aside from simplicity of navigation; personally, I referred to both electronic and paper maps a lot). Indeed, we met a chap who had made it as far as Luchon maplessly. Whilst way-marking was excellent, it could sometimes, at first glance, appear a little conflicting:

Day 7

The most memorable of the features of the morning of Day 7 has to be The Bridge, which spans the Gorge d’Holzarte. Here are a couple of snaps of it:

I crossed it with a great sense of purpose (although I did pause once nearly safe at the other end, to have a look over the edge; it was a Long Way Down!):

The bridge shots were the best we got of the gorge. The path around it was lovely, but didn’t give good photo opportunities for the gorge itself (the falling rain probably didn’t encourage photos either). Much later in the day, after a rare almost-level walk, and a pass, we found ourselves in about as sunken a sunken lane as I have ever seen a sunken lane to be:

The camping area behind the gite in St Engrace was cosy, but no-one snored, so all was well. The tent nearest the camera was nothing more than a play tent, which the two youths using it had found not to be waterproof … or long enough. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a snap of their feet sticking out of the door the following morning.

GR10 Days 0–3: Photos

I didn’t post many photos as we went along, so I’ve gone through those we took (huge sigh of relief when I safely retrieved my photos from the memory card following the drowning of my camera*) and picked out a few for each day. Certainly in this first selection there aren’t many of the landscape; I’ve just picked those that jumped out at me.

Day 0

We actually remembered to take a start photo! Here’s our selfie on the busy beach of Hendaye Plage:

On our campsite for the first night we pitched next to a contender for the award for the worst pitching of an Akto ever. We felt sure that if Alan Sloman had been there, he would have repitched it for them!

Day 1:

After a wander through some green lumps, we popped out into the out-of-place shopping village of Ibardin (just over the border in Spain). Absolutely heaving it was! We paused for coffee to people watch and marvel at the bizarre (top-of-a-mountain-road) location of this busy shopping area.

In a little wander off the GR10 to see if we could take a slightly more direct line, we passed this field which caught our eyes for the presence of horses which were smaller than the sheep:

After another interlude on the GR10, we then headed off it again, up the path to La Rhune, a heavily commercialised summit to which a little train runs. There it is ahead of us, under that gorgeous blue sky:

And here’s a zoom showing the amount of construction that has taken place up there:

Some interesting rock carvings were passed on our way:

Then we skirted the summit (to get to the summit required quite a round-about route which was just too long for the end of Day 1), dropped down and rejoined the GR10 where we soon came upon the train which runs up to the top. Lots of people waved at us and, as we sat and ate our tea, everyone shouted ‘bon appetit!’ over to us:

We didn’t put the tent up until the train stopped for the day, at 7pm, as we were quite close to the line (as you can see in the snap below). That, of course, was our first pitch for Night 1. Neither of us took a  photo of our second pitch, but then it was a bit dark by then…

Day 2:

Not many photos worthy of sharing for Day 2, which is quite possibly the fault of the photographers, rather than of the surroundings.

We had lunch on Day 2 by the Col des Trois-Croix. The Col des Trois-Croix didn’t sport any crosses, but presumably it was named for these three, located quite a good distance to the west.

We finished Day 2 up on a ridge, with pleasant lumpiness all around:

Day 3:

We failed to take any photos of the tent at the end of Day 2, so we took a quick snap as we left the following (murky) morning. Mick is standing where our heads had been. Pity we forgot to take any photos the night before, as it was a far nicer location (when we’d had blue skies and a view) than this snap suggests:

The church and graveyard in Bidarray, one of a number we visited along the way:

(As an aside, we sat outside a bar across the road from the church, having a good French breakfast (for second breakfast) and before we went on our way we applied suncream. It hadn’t been needed earlier in the morning as we had been shaded up until we reached town. Getting distracted half way through, I pondered out loud whether I had already done my left arm. It had a glean and it passed the sniff test (i.e. it smelt of suncream), so I concluded I had done it. On reflection, the glean was sweat and the smell was the previous day’s cream. I burnt my left arm that day and spent the next two sweltering days wearing my long sleeved top whilst it calmed down.)

From Bidarray up onto a long ridge we went. Mick looks particularly happy to be at the high point (even though you can clearly see some of the flies that were also enjoying this spot, to the left of the trig point):

The next uphill along the ridge was gorgeously within woodland – welcome respite on this hot day:

Yikes! You wouldn’t want to have a heart attack near here, with all those vultures sitting around waiting!

Bracken was a large feature of much of the walk, some of it was quite tall, as illustrated by this photo of Mick being swallowed up into the greenery as we made our way down off the ridge to St Etienne de Baigorry. :

There must have been quite a bit of dust on the first three days, as those certainly aren’t tan lines** in this next snap! Fortunately, after 3 days out, we visited a campsite where my first priority (mainly due to being severely overheated, rather than because I was filthy) was to sample the showers.

 

(*Not for the first time, I put an important electronic item in a plastic bag in heavy rain … and failed to seal the bag, such that it ended up sitting in a pool of water. The bag in question was itself in the pocket of my waterproof jacket, but it doesn’t have a waterproof zip and the rain was ridiculously heavy.

** I did, however, end the trip with tan lines just like that, making me look like I’m wearing verruca socks and attracting many stares footwards when I walked through towns wearing my Crocs. The silly leg-tan, combined with the neckline and half-arm tan, meant that I looked perfectly ridiculous when I donned my black frock for a family funeral today.)