Easy hiking trails

We get up at 7.30am and drive to a parking place at road bent near branch to Piau Engaly. The parking place is almost full already. We park the car and at 9.30am start to walk by a mountain stream. The path runs through wood and then after an hours walk by the pastures. After yet another hour walk we are at the steep hillside covered with snow. We catch there our parking place neighbors and one more couple. Everybody is examining the hillside ahead. Our neighbors start to climb the snowy hillside and we follow them The third couple decide to retreat. Walking a deep snow we get to the rest house (Refuge de Barroude). Then we move on to the Bielse pass and further to the summit Sum de Barroude (2674m). No plants up there – just rocks, stones and snow (and the sun above us).

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We take a rest on the summit and then go back. It looks easy to move down by the deep snow – one has just to move upward the legs and the rest happens by itself. I even exercise running down and gliding on my foots. Feels exciting although not very reasonable.

We se the goat with the kid on the way. They are timid still Ilze manages to take a couple of photos. We talk with our parking place neighbors on the way down. The man is from the Netherlands, the woman is Spanish. Like us they have been in Pyrenees before. We discuss our impressions from the Gavernie and Breche de Roland.

The snow has melted inside our boots and made them (as well as socks) absolutely wet. We wring out the socks but it makes no big difference. We are back in parking place after 8 hours trip.

The first thing in St. Lary Soulan we go to a shop and purchase gaiters.

We get up at six and drive to Spain. We had to go through Bielsa tunnel – 3km long and straight almost through end to end. On the way to tunnel there is a fog and rain. When in tunnel we almost instantly see the other end and a promisingly bright light through it. Bingo – there is a perfect weather behind the other end of the tunnel. The road is perfect as well – broad and straight (as much as it is possible up in the mountains). The road goes gradually down – we drive it to town of Ainsa then turn right to Torl. Torl is a town by the famous Ordessa (and Mont Perdido) National park. We stop at the park information center and get the maps and suggestion to drive more 8km to Pradetta village. There the road ends with giant green parking place (a lot of trees and no pavement. We are there at 10am but the parking place is already busy. Just after us two large tourist buses drive in and cars come in one after another. Thank God the path is very broad and has place for everybody.

The path goes by valley with high mountain walls left and right – the Ordessa canyon. It’s warm and sunny. A couple of beautiful waterfalls are there for our delight. Couple of hours take us to the stunning mountain ridge – circus,
we start to climb uphill. We get to the section where the chains have to be used to proceed. After overcoming the part of the chain supported section we understand that it is time to turn back. We take a rest and then start the way back. At 5pm we are at the parking place.

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When in the Bielsa tunnel we see the cloud stuck in the French end – the weather has not changed in France.

Our morning starts at seven. Sausages, salad, bread with a jam, yogurt in breakfast. We decide to use tunnel of Bielsa (which connects France with Spain) and climb the mountains there. When we get to the tunnel, it’s cold and rainy there. Therefore we return back to St. Lary Soulan to take a local track to the nearby hill. First our track leads us to the church of Vignec then up in the mountains to the several Soulan villages (each in different height). The weather changes frequently – hot and sunny changes to damp and rainy and back. The path crosses the border of pastures. The staircases are used to allow the for a man to move out and in the pasture. Cows do not like the staircases – so they are trapped in the pasture.

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We return back to our studio at 4pm. Having left the backpacks we walk to the town center. The town is pretty but a little bit fake – the houses look like ancient ones but are built recently – to attract tourists.

It’s still damp and foggy. We decide go to Spain next day – to Ordessa valley.

Vignec is situated near the town of  St. Lary Soulan. The first thing in the morning we drive to the town centre to the tourist office. Here we purchase a couple of track description brochures.

As the first trip we select the lakes that are not far from St. Lary Soulan. We drive to the South then branch off to the lake Lac d’Oredon. We park near the lake and at 10:45 start our trip to Lac d’Aubert. The path leads us through the rocks and woods by the several smaller lakes. It starts to rain a little. We climb up to the lake Aubert and see from here high in the mountains the group of skiers. No cable cars or routes here. We don’t know how they get there – perhaps drive as high as possible and then climb to the right place. The descend seems a bit risky.

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Next we move on to the pass Hourquette d’Aubert (2499m). It rains but still there is a good view on the mountains. We take some chocolate bars and apples for a snack and go back down. At the parking place we are at 5pm.

We get to the Pyrenees after a few days spent around the Tarn canyon – you can read about that part of our journey here.

To avoid traffic jams from the Tarn we avoid the main roads that go through Toulouse. The roads we drive nevertheless are fast enough – so we manage to reach our studio in village of Vignec, at 9pm on Saturday 14th June 2008. When moved in we have yet to check the inventoir of the studio and to fill in the papers for gendarmerie.

Diary:

Horquette d'Aubert

St. Lary Soulan

Ordessa National Park

Sum de Barroude

Pic de Cuneille

Oula and other lakes

Lac de Consaterre

Col d'Aspen and Pic du Midi

Pic de Heche Castet

Ō and other lakes,

Hell's waterfalls

Pineta valley

Anisclo canyon

Pic de Madamete