Cloudy outside today. We select a track that goes from the close by sky resort Gourette to the Spanish borer an Sanctus summit (Pic Sanctus 2842m).
We visited Gourette last year as well. This time the picture is very much the same – the town is empty because out of the high season.
We start to go at 9am to lake Anglas. The weather changes frequently from foggy to sunny and back. We have a look at old iron mine, at least what has been left out of the iron mine – old railway track and a carriage. Right by the mine we see flying two giant vultures. They fly unpleasantly close to us.
When we are up by the lake Anglas, we hardly see it because of the fog. While we walk by the lake the fog disappears and we have a full sight of the very picturesque lake.
Further on we climb to another two lakes – Uzious and Lavedan. They are beautifull as well and they get covered and uncovered by the fog several times while we walk by.
From lake Lavedan we ascend to pass Uzious (Col d’Uzious), then by the stony and steep path we proceed up to the summit Sanctus. The weather changes again from the perfectly sunny to the cloudy when we approach the summit. Close to the summit two vultures start to circle above our heads. They fly so close that we clearly see how they move the heads and watch us. We try to look as unpalatable as possible 😉
Back to lake Uzious we follow the same path. Further we select another track that looks perfect at the beginning but later becomes steeper and steeper. We have to hang to the chains and then climb down by the large water-pipe. In a while we are in place where the track goes just vertically down. Ilze opens the track description and reads that we must climb down between the cliff and the pipe. To our surprise we manage to do that and to get down!