Feeling full of energy and keen for one last big hike before we left the Pyrenees I was given the task of finding a hike which was not going to be too busy, not involve climbing over 800m and hopefully afford us some beautiful views. Easy.
The hike I picked had us leaving from the next little village up the valley called Barèges and we dutifully parked our van and headed up what looked like quite a steep climb up the side of the valley. As we started the climb up the sky was blue but we did notice the odd cloud forming but we’re soon deep in the forest climbing up seemingly endless switchbacks. The climb seemed to get steeper and steeper but we just kept our heads down and kept going until we arrived at the top (800m up).
Well when I say the top it was actually just the top of this pathway and we could see a ridge rising up above us. The other issue we had was that the clouds had come in. The clouds had formed a band and we must have been pretty close to the top of it and we could catch glimpses of the amazing views that surrounded us but as quickly as the clouds parted they would close again revealing a different area of the mountain range.
We sat for a while having a snack before eventually deciding to follow the ridge up to see if we could get above the clouds completely. The path was steep and the ridge had fairly steep drops on one side while the other opened up into a shallower valley full of splendid wild flowers. On and on we scrambled until finally the path ended and we were atop of the ridge and were rewarded with some pretty special views. Although the cloud hadn’t cleared and we hadn’t got fully above it we didn’t really have any option other than to sit and have lunch and enjoy the vista.
We were really happy with our choice of hike and while we had seen maybe a dozen other hikers we had spent most of the time by ourselves. Also with hikes the ascent can be tough but it is the descending that I/we/most people find hardest on the body and so we were extremely happy when the we enjoyed and descent that was very shallow as it wound its way down the mountain back to the van. All in all a wonderful hike! T
