Pyrénées

I awoke about 5:45 a.m. Petit dejeuner had the welcome addition of five grain bread and the coffee was good. We thanked the Monsieur (61 Euros) and set off at 8:15 a.m.

The trail started above the ski area and we kept high until we joined it. It led up a stony road and then turned to the left across a grassy field and then into grey limestone crossing between craters or sink holes. We could see Pic d'Arlas that we had climbed the previous day behind us. We caught up to the French couple who we bunked with and introduced ourselves. We passed them, but they soon caught up when we had trouble at a wide gravely ski area where the path was not clearly marked (a turn down to the left and the trail went off to the right). This happened again when I lost the trail. When we reached Pas de L'Osque (1922m.), we got a last look back at Pic d'Arlas. Soon after this we caught up to Tom, Jane and Claire. (I was going fast as I thought the day would be seven hours.) We climbed in the sunshine with clouds visible below us. It was up and down over the limestone rocks. At one point just below Pas d'Azuns we had to climb steeply up and then cross a sheer rock, but there were places in the face where you could hold on with footholds as well. At the Pas d'Azuns it was beautiful looking at the bowl beneath Pic d'Anie and Pic de Countende. We took some pictures with our three companions. The cliffs above were rock faces with stone jutting up at the top - spectacular. The trail dropped from here quite steeply with the first switchback around two vertical sentinels of stone. Looking away from Pic d'Anie, one could see hazy mountains in the distance with clouds below us. The trail bent to the left through grassy areas interspersed with rock but was easy going. It bore to the right above Cabane du Cap de la Bairch. Here a young man was chatting with our three companions with sheep and hogs in the background (we later learned he was making cheese). Bon got some water behind the building and we headed left down the grassy slope as the couple behind us arrived. We now had the company of a clear stream to the right. Tom, Jane and Claire decided to "paddle" or wade in the stream and we passed by. It was green and lovely with sun above and the bowl behind, but as we passed a herd of cows on the way down, we began to get into the clouds.

The trail now reached a woodsy stretch of up and down descent through woods of green moss, ferns, balsam and birch-like trees - not unlike Maine woods. It was muddy in stretches and one had to bypass the center of the trail. As we began to exit the woods we came on the huge Refuge de Laberouat which was clearly vacant but was twice the size of any place we had stayed.

As we descended from here we began to see day hikers coming up the trail - one fairly large group. The path continued mostly in woods until we came out in fields above Lescun. Here a family with two girls passed (one with handsome red hair) followed by a whitish small fox-like sheep dog that cowered as I tried to pat it. He now began following Bon through the grassy fields. The trail turned right down an old deep path between two hedgerows and then through a gate of two pallets - it continued as a brown dirt path below as grassy hill above to the right and a gradual grassy hill rising on the left.

Here we hit the first stretch of road (passing a man in a truck who was dumping a couple of large containers, it appeared surreptitiously) and we left the road again. Then we hit another stretch of road and arrived above the black slate roofs of Lescun at about 1:15 p.m. We walked past the church (tower under construction) and to the center of town.

The door to the Hotel Pic d'Anie was open (we had heard that the hotel was closed). After taking my boots off I walked into the hotel and no one seemed to be there; finally a young man appeared. He went in the back to get the proprietress, a pleasant older woman who took us upstairs through a hallway room with an antique round wooden table and showed us to a very comfortable room with private bath and a little balcony. We thought we'd arrived in heaven!

We settled in and decided to head to Bedous which the proprietress had told us was "douze kilometres" up the road in order to get additional funds at the ATM. We planned to hitchhike. As we left the hotel Tom and company showed up and pointed out the post office where I bought some stamps. We then walked down out of the town and were soon picked up by a painter who had but one seat in the car (and it had to be cleared of debris) but allowed Bon to sit on my lap for the ride to Bedous. We chatted about his art competitions in the towns about and his son and our daughter attending art school. He spoke quite good English but we went back and forth between the languages. He dropped us at the "distributeur de billets" where we got cash. We walked up into the square where there was a creperie but it was fermé due to it being 3:00 p.m. We quickly went to the tourisme office where we got a gîte booklet from a young man and woman. Then on to the Casino (this one a grocery store) to shop for a few things. We bumped into Claire and Jane at the cash station and at the grocery store.

We walked out of town a kilometer or so only to be picked up by a car which had already picked up Jane and Claire. The young man dropped us at the road (with many virages or curves) up to Lescun and Claire and Jane suggested we hitch first. A nice looking young mother with her five year old daughter picked us up and I crouched in the front seat which had a propane tanks at my feet while Bon got in the back.

Outside the hotel, Tom, Alan and George were sitting at a table having a beer. We joined them and the women reappeared. Also the young Oxford couple showed up and Alan supplied them with some tuna fish - they went off to camp. However, it got quite chilly, so I went up to shower and Bon soon followed me.

We met our crowd at 8:00 p.m. for dinner - seven in all with Alan and George. We had a pleasant mutton stew with two bottles of good red wine and I had my obligatory Gateau Basque. Good conversation and a trip to the bar afterwards for drinks/beer. We bid them goodnight at about 10:30 p.m. still in cloudy conditions. There were thunderstorms in the night but Bon and I slept well.