CANIGOU, NOW

TORRE D'EINA AS SEEN FROM BORDER RIDGE

PARTICIPANTS ON FORMACIO I TREBALL PROJECT

BRECHE DURIER

CANIGOU SUMMIT

CRASHED AIRCRAFT

MUSIC NIGHT IN THE GITE AT BATERE

The gite owner was right. The weather was clear again on Thursday morning.

I left Pyrenees 2000 at around 9.30am and made my way down to the village of Eyne on the valley floor. The route was far from direct and required careful navigation. It was midday by the time I got there.

Eyne was the start point of a path called the Cami de Nuria which took me up the middle of the Vallee d'Eyne to Coll d'Eina (also called Col de Nuria), right on the border ridge at 2,683m. The valley is beautiful, but seemed endless. It was a long slog with the extra food and water I was carrying, and it took me 5 hours to get to the Coll from Eyne, including a lunch stop.

From there I walked east along the ridge to peaks of increasing altitude; first the Pic d'Eina at 2,786m and then the Pic de Noufonts at 2,861m. Although there were patches of snow, none were on the path, so the gite owner was right here too.

The main highlight of the day was that I saw several groups of isard, a horned animal about the size of a goat, but related to the antelope. They are common in the Pyrenees, but had evaded me so far. I also saw quite a few marmots.

I reached Refugi d'Ull de Ter on the Spanish side of the ridge at around 8.30pm - a bit late for supper and I would have been happy to camp outside, but they offered me a bed, which I accepted. Before retiring I chatted to John, a Scotsman living in Bristol, who was walking a section of the HRP in the opposite direction to me.

I slept OK but could have done without two noisy Frenchmen assuming that just because they wanted to get up at 6.00am, everyone else did too. I provided my own breakfast, but did give the Spanish refuge staff a training session on how to make a decent cup of tea, which they said they appreciated. They won't be pouring the milk in first from now on!

The Director of a project called 'Formacio i Treball' asked me if I would take some photographs of a group of youngsters before they set off from the refuge. The organisation invites young adults who have problems with drugs, behaviour, crime or finding work to participate in sections of a 500 mile trek that will take them across the Pyrenees. Character building stuff. Three of the youngsters are going the whole way.

My own walk continued on from the previous day's. From the refuge I got back onto the border ridge and continued east along it until I reached Roc Colom; I then followed a line of mountains into France called Les Esquerdes de Rotja. The walk was uneventful, except for the distinctive Pic de Canigou ahead of me becoming more dominant. This 2,784m peak is one that I cannot really avoid climbing as the HRP passes right over the summit.

Throughout the day I walked at an altitude that didn't fall below below 2,200m until I turned north to visit the Refuge de Mariailles. This refuge is a popular starting point for the climb of Pic de Canigou. It was 3.00pm when I got there, and the weather was really hot, so I enjoyed a couple of cold drinks. Then, at 5.00pm I refilled my water bottles and prepared to climb part of the way up Canigou, to a plateau where I could pitch my tent. That meant that I was starting the climb in the evening and would then be completing it next morning, both times of day when it would be cooler.

Overnight it was very gusty, which made the tent do a sort of a jive every so often. I pegged out a couple of extra guy ropes during the night. When I heard the rain too, I wondered if I would be able to climb in the morning at all. However, it was dry at 6.30am and the wind had subsided, so an hour later I was on my way up. The path became steep almost immediately. 

The wind got stronger as I climbed and then the rain started again. As usual, the rain stopped almost as soon as I put on my waterproofs, but the wind persisted. This wasn't too much of a problem until I got to the final section of the climb, a chimney called Breche Durier, where I had to put away the trekking poles and make progress up a very steep rock staircase using hands as well as feet.

I wasn't the first onto the summit that day as a small group who had come up from the other side were already taking photographs by the colourfully adorned cross. One of them kindly took a picture of me.

It was uncomfortably windy on the summit so I quickly headed down by the route that the other summiteers had come up. I was at the Refuge des Cortalets by 10.30am for tea, biscuits and a rest.

An hour later I filled my water bottles and headed east again. My destination now was Batere, only 10 miles away.

Shortly after leaving Cortalets I was surprised to find the remains of a crashed aircraft next to the path - it didn't look recent I may add, but it was a reminder that I am walking at altitudes where aircraft commonly fly.

However, don't let me underestimate a 10 mile walk again. Although the route was generally downhill, the path was extremely rocky and exposed in places, requiring great care. Everything seemed to take longer than I expected. I had a picnic lunch outside an unmanned refuge called Pinatell, consuming the last of my food, and thought that all the hard bits of the day's walk were now over. However, the sting in the tail came not long after - the path started to climb again by over 300m up to the Col de Cirere.

The Col was really spooky - cold and dank with fog rolling over. It had an eerie, threatening feel about it - 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' came to mind. I was relieved to be able to trot quickly downhill again to Batere.

Batere is small village that seems to comprise about 3 buildings, none of them a shop. Fortunately, one of them is a Gite d'etape, so I booked demi-pension for the night, feeling especially grateful that they had a bed available for me as there was nothing else nearby and I was out of food.

I turned out that Saturday night was music night at the gite, so we were treated to folk music with our aperitifs and rock music after supper (both genres from the same band). There didn't seem to be any restriction on how late the band played. I suppose that's the advantage of a village with hardly any neighbours to annoy.