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| READY FOR EARLY MORNING RUN UP VIGNMALE |
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| GREAT VIEWS |
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| LUNCH OVERLOOKING LUZ-SAINT-SAUVEUR |
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| MADDENING CAMPSITE |
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| PICTUREQUE CAMPSITE |
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| AUBERGE GYPAETE IN GAVARNIE |
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| CIRQUE OF GAVARNIE |
There was a second reason. At 7.00am a race was starting. Participants had to run from the centre of Cauterets at an altitude of 926m to the 3,298m summit of Vignemale and back, a linear distance of 45km. Phew! Just the thought of it brought me out in a sweat. Makes my walk look like stroll. Mind you, they weren't carrying heavy rucksacks.
As it happens, I was quite pleased with my own performance. The sign said it would take me four and a half hours to climb to the 1,949m Col de Riou and I did it in three hours.
On my way down the other side I had a nice surprise. There was my friend Jean-Louis coming up. His walk was not the same as mine and he had chosen a different way around the icefields. Now he was coming to the end of his walk, but he said he would follow my blog.
I continued onto the villages of Grust and Sazos which, in spite of the gnarly names, were absolutely charming, and in the early afternoon I found a superb spot overlooking Luz-St-Sauveur to enjoy lunch. The town looked interesting from above, with a river running through it and a chateau, but I haven't got time to stop and explore every place I see.
I was making good time so I trudged on. I passed a campground called 'Saint Bazerque', but I'd be crazy to stay there, wouldn't I? Later I passed an EDF hydroelectric power station. It made me think that some of my electrical appliances at home might be powered by Pyrenean water.
When I felt I'd had enough, I found myself a reasonably flat piece of ground on the northern flank of the Sapiniere de Bue where I could pitch my tent - sapiniere means fir forest. I watched the setting sun bathe the opposite mountainside in rich colour as I ate my cold supper. I'd walked for 12 hours, which is a lot, but I knew that by doing so I would be certain reach Gavarnie tomorrow.
In the morning the sun was on the other side of the sky, so it illuminated the opposite end of the valley. Another great view as I ate breakfast.
I packed away my tent and got moving at about 7.30am. As usual the walk started with an uphill stretch, and then continued along a difficult rocky path through the forest. Once out of the forest, the path was overgrown with spiky shrubs which impeded progress a bit; then I had a few scree slopes to contend with. Nevertheless, the weather was good, which cheered my spirits.
What cheered my spirits even more was the view of the famous Cirque de Gavarnie straight ahead of me for the final couple of miles....a magnificent amphitheatre of snow-capped mountains with sheer flanks and waterfalls cascading down. One of the waterfalls, the 422m Grande Cascade, is said to be the highest in Europe. Definitely a sight worth two days of hard walking.
I got down into the pretty village of Gavarnie in the early afternoon. After booking demi-pension at the Gite Auberge Gypaete, I took a walk in my flip flops around the village and then started following a path that leads to the centre of the Cirque. Almost out of nowhere there was a sharp crack of thunder and the rain just poured down in buckets. I hadn't brought my waterproofs so I scuttled back to the village as quickly as I could to tuck under a shop's awning. Actually, scuttling is not that easy in wet flip flops - they kept sliding off my feet as I walked. Nobody warned me of this when I bought them.
On my way back to the gite I popped into an outdoor shop to see if anything could be done about the broken tip on one of my walking poles. Whilst demonstating the problem, the tip dropped off the other one. In a flash, the shopkeeper knocked the old ends off the poles and replaced them with new ones. All for €12. Funny how solutions turn up just when you need them.
When I returned to the gite I spent a while studying my maps. I'd met a walker who had just come down after having been higher up in the mountains. He told me that it had been dangerous and he had seen a helicopter rescue whilst up there. We agreed that 2,000m was a reasonable altitude limit before snow starts to cause problems. From the maps it was clear that to escape Gavarnie I would have to climb to over 2,600m, unless I returned by the way I came. I needed to keep moving east so I decided that the best thing would be to do another hop using public transport and get to Bagneres-de-Luchon, or Luchon as everyone seems happy to call it. I may have the same problem again there, but at least I am exploring some of the important and interesting locations in the High Pyrenees.
Thus, at 10.45am next morning I was on the bus back to Lourdes where I could catch a train to Luchon. I had been so lucky to see the Cirque. Today the weather was cold, wet and very foggy so I couldn't see anything.