The Ariege
The next section of the Pyrenees, crossing the Departmente' de Ariege, is noted in our guidebooks as remote - with potentially long days trekking between accommodation and difficulties in obtaining food and supplies.While Rach and I read these introductions with some concern, we knew we had our tent and cooking gear, precisely to address issues such as remoteness and to minimise the pressure (if not the weight in our packs) to undertake long days between accommodation. Being relatively late in the season however, we did have some concerns about finding food and supplies but as you will read below, these fears proved groundless.
Following is an extract on the Ariege taken from "summitpost.org" which provides some background information on this lovely area.
"Type: Area/Range
"Location: Occitania, France, Europe
"Lat/Lon: 42.85986°N / 1.59302°E
"Title: Pyrénées: Ariège / Arieja
"From the topographic point of view, the Ariège is a region of high peaks, marking the continuity of the Central Pyrenees. Very few peaks exceed 3000m, but a very big crowd of peaks almost reach this limit, around 2800m. However, the Ariège has limited roads which makes these peaks much more remote and challenging to reach. Thiis s one of the reasons that explains why, though paradoxically located close to Toulouse, the peaks of the Ariège are less popular in the French Pyrenees. A pity for mass tourism, but a windfall for mountaineers looking for authentic feelings of freedom, enhanced by the fact that many areas have excellent quality of rock and very entertaining scrambles.
"And this "remoteness" is what makes, indeed, the lure of the Ariège. The Ariège is a region of tiny roads, small well-preserved villages with the most authentic and prettiest Pyrenean architecture one can find in the whole range. Traditions, like the gastronomy and the hand-made craft, are well preserved. This also is a high place of the Pyrenean pastoralism, with world famous cheeses. Inhabitants are "high in colours" and, except for the usual percentage, usually very welcoming and easygoing. Generally very proud and enthusiastic as soon as you show any mark of interest about the place and the way they live."
Bagneres-de-Luchon (650m) to Cabane de Sauneres (1660m)
Woke up 8.15 as breakfast was arranged for 9am. Idea was to pack by breakfast but the packs didn't pack themselves while we sat on the balcony till 8.57amBreakfast of fresh fruit salad (including mangoes, nectarines, pineapple, banana, apple, orange, red and green grapes), homemade yoghurt which we put maple syrup on, ham, 4 cheeses, toast, fresh baguette, 5 different types of home made jams, 3 different types of buter, cream cheese, freshly made French toast (which we had maple syrup on), freshly made Pyrenees cake and a homemade coconut dessert (like a cream caramel). We didn't ask for eggs this morning.
Left breakfast to go and pack - with very full stomachs but found ourselve back on our balcony some more.
Finally had showers and were packed by midday - all ready to leave on-time!
Said goodbyes - could have stayed longer. Nicole kindly is going to send a few kilos of things by post back to London for us - all stuff we don't really need. Been carrying nicotine tablets for weeks but seems we are going to keep testing the French nicotine. Need something for those odd days we don't have wine. We also sent back back one of the Ipads.
Walked through park and through town, buying 2 fresh baguettes at the bakery on the way. We stopped just on outskirts of town beside a stream to have the 2 beers we had taken with us (before they got warm).
Left Luchon at 12.45pm to commence the Ariege stage of our Pyrenees adventure.
Stopped 10 mins later to chat to a British couple who were travelling in France in their camper van then continued for 3 or so hours walking through trees up to small village called Artigue. Stopped to get water from locals.
Continued up on a wide track to Cabane de Sauneres, arriving at 5.45pm. We only intended to stop for a break and to continue up nearer to the col to camp but the cabane was unlocked and was quite clean and warm - and had a double wooden platform we could put our thermarests on to use as a bed. The views were also stunning - so we decided to sleep in the cabane rather than use our tent. It would also save packing up a wet tent in the morning. Sat and watched the views having red wine and olives and anchovies. Second course: lentil soup and bread; Third course: Asiatique beef noodles i.e. 2-minute noodles (Rach's favourite).
Cabane de Sauneres (1660m) to Fos (544m)
Woke to a beautiful morning after a great sleep, had cuppa tea in the sun, melon for breakfast (ah, another kilo gone). Left 9.30am.
Started straight up from the cabane and encountered our first difficulty of navigating in the Ariege. At right turn took wrong path and ended up on wrong side of the peak.
Got to Pic de Bacanere (2193m) and saw our first other trekker in the Ariege. He didn't seem friendly at first as kind of ignored us when we staggered to top and said "bonjour" - but after we asked him a question he became chatty and had questions for us. He was doing the GR 10 the other way. We decided, once he'd left, that he was bear paranoid. We would have believed him if he'd said that a bear came near his tent last night - but when he said his tent was surrounded by bears ... He then asked about camping in NZ and whether it would be dangerous. "In what way?" Rach asked. "The bears?" Case closed. It was evident though he had been scared during the night. Although we've seen signs re not trekking alone and what to do if you encounter a bear. We decided it was most likely stags he could hear.
Lunch at second col (Col d'Esclot-d'Aou 2093m). Day old bread, chèvre and sheep cheese, avocado and beef tomato. Two French hikers arrived - tried to ask us what seemed like specific questions about where we'd hiked from that morning, in French, but after seemingly not receiving adequate answers returned in the direction they'd come from - pointing to the incoming grey clouds.
Began the (supposed) 4.5 hour descent to Fos which took us 5.5 hours. Went through beautiful scenery but our bodies were wrecked from all that downhill. At the bottom of the forrest we stopped to find the plaque of a Kiwi who died in Fos in July 2012. He'd just got into the Gite and had a heart attack. He was apparently a fit guy living out his dream of walking across the Pyrenees. Bit sad for his family and an administrative nightmare to repatriate his body, but couldn't think of a better way to go.
Arrived at our chambre d'hote at 7.35pm, just before dark owned and run by an English couple Robert and Christine. Robert was still teaching an online English class till 8.30 so we had time to slump onto their couch, have a couple of beers then have hot showers before meeting them for dinner at 8.45.
Dinner was great. 4 courses and all delicious - not often we are beaten by the food but we were this time. Drinks were also included and as they were like us, and loved to eat and drink, we were very tipsy and very full when we left the dinner table at midnight. Menu consisted of:
1st course: melon with 3 different meats (salami and 2 cured hams).
2nd course: beef bourguignon, cabbage and roast spuds. Cabbage and spuds from the garden.
3rd course: berry crumble with cream - berries all from their garden.
4th course: platter of figs from the garden and about 5 different cheeses.
Fos (544m) to Refuge de l'Etang d'Araing (1950m)
After a morning shower and full English breakfast (orange juice, muesli, yoghurt, fried egg, mushrooms, bacon, black pudding, toast, jams, pot of tea) we said our goodbyes about 10am. Christine gave us some melon to have for our morning tea.Lovely road walk up to small pretty town of Melles - the even road was welcome to ease the body back into things as we could still feel the effects of yesterday's downhill. We then started a steep ascent up a through a forrest.
Reached a plateau where we had lunch in the sun. Normal fodder of cheeses and salami including two baguettes from the local bakery in Fos.
Continued up to the Col d'Aueran (2176m) and then it was a short 30 minutes down to the refuge at 1950m.
The lovely young Gite manager met us and talked us through the ropes. As in many gites you must leave boots and backpack in a separate room. The GR10 is renowned for bed bugs! He offered to show us 'our' room - but we new that we would be sharing the dorm tonight with others. Jeff had been feeling apprehensive about this for a few days and would rather have camped - but as it was meant to rain this night he agreed to the dorm in the Gite.
Inside were about 20 French hikers looking over maps and chatting while outside a group of French guys and we, were drinking and smoking. At 7.30 we were called for dinner. Jeff and I had previously spied a table where we thought we could sit on our own for dinner. This wasn't to be. Two long tables were set and we sit at the end of one beside our drinking-smoking comrades who after dinner share their Armagnac and home made apple spirit with us. Dinner consisted of 4 courses - soup, chicken casserole and pasta, cheese followed by chocolate and mint brownie. We washed this down with a bottle of red.
After dinner we chat with the cyclists who give us some foie gras to have for our lunch the next day. It's then we learn they are our dorm mates and they ask if we snore. I look sheepishly at Jeff and Jeff assures them he won't snore. As he has snored every night on the GR10, and in fact ever since I've slept with him, I'm wondering if he's planning on not sleeping this night.
We were in bed early about 9pm and asleep in no time and didn't even hear the cyclists come to bed. They were basically silent throughout the night and Jeff did manage to refrain from his normal roof-raising snores and snorts and the only sound coming from the room were his loud breathing.
Refuge de l'Etang d'Araing (1950m) to Col de l'Arech (1802m)
Heard people up at about 7am. We got up about 7.30. The cyclists hadn't stirred yet so we put our clothes on in the dark. In the dining room the big French group were having breakfast and we could see through the windows that it was raining and we were in fog and mist. Grabbing a coffee each we ventured outside to join the other morning smokers. We could tell it wasn't going to be a pleasant start up this morning.
By the time we had breakfast and a few more cups of coffee and hot chocolate the rain had stopped and there was the smallest bit of blue sky showing. We set off at 9.30 and were pleased with our decision to leave later - we didn't envy the French group heading out at 8am into the rain.
It's a steady climb up to the Serre d'Araing (2221m) in the mist and cloud but as we reach the top the clouds dissipate and we have a bit of a view of the hills and unfortunately where we are heading - straight down!
At one point we are confronted by yet another flock of sheep accompanied by a pair of "bonjour" dogs.
"Bonjour" dogs are called Pastou dogs in France - but we call them Bonjour dogs because whenever there are Pastou dogs there is usually a sign warning hikers to stay away from them and to not get too near the sheep - and the sign starts off by saying 'Bonjour'. These dogs are taken from their mother at birth and raised with a flock of sheep. They then think they are part of the flock and guard them ferociously.
Finally we reach a forest section where the decline, although still quite steep and slippery, is manageable. We reach Eylie-d'en-Haut at 4pm and sit outside the Gite contemplating whether to stay here the night or continue on a bit further to camp. Tomorrow will be a long day so we wonder whether to try to knock an hour or two off it today. There are no other trekkers at the Gite - which doesn't surprise us as this time of year as we haven't seen many GR10ers recently. We peek inside the Gite and see it's warm and tidy and are very tempted to stay. At that point the Gite managers arrive and announce the Gite is closed. Decision made for us. They inform us of another Gite 5 or 6 kms down the road but this isn't an option as it would add too much to tomorrow's walk. They try to explain in French how we can take another route tomorrow so we don't have to come back to Eylie-d'en-Haut. But we don't understand - and we like the security of following the red and white markers so don't want to go 'off piste' and are keen to do all the GR10 proper. So, even though we can see low cloud and probable rain up in the direction we are heading, we set off at 4.30pm believing we still have 3.5 hours of light left.
We take a sweepstake as to what height we'll be walking in the cloud. Jeff guesses it will be at 1300m and I guess 1500m. It's at 1400m that we hit the cloud and with it the rain. It's cold but as we are going up steeply and don't stop, we keep warm. We are soaking wet and are heading for a cabin we've been told about that is before Col de l'Arech at 1802m. We arrive at the said cabin at 6.30pm, still ain the rain, only to find it's a decrepid cabin with holes in the roof. There's nowhere flat to set up our tent so we have to keep going. It doesn't look like there will be anything flat up to Col de l'Arech so make the decison to try to make the Cabin Pastorale de l'Arech by dark. Last night it didnt get dark till 8pm and our trusty guide says it's 30 minutes to the col and another 30 minutes to this cabin and it's now 7pm. We put our skates on. We make the col by 7.30pm collecting water from the stream on the way but by 7.45pm tonight it's pitch dark. Jeff is keen to stop as it's too dangerous to continue but I am keen to get to the cabin so Jeff gets his head lamp out. The track going down to the cabin is a very narrow and slippery traverse and we realise we can't go any further as it would be too easy to slip down the bank, which could be hundreds of metres down, so we make the decision to turn back to the paddock we've passed 10 minutes ago. It was difficult finding a patch of ground flat enough for our tent as the paddock is on a steep incline but we choose the only spot that's only slightly on a lean and begin to put the tent up in the rain and dark. After stripping all our wet and muddy clothes off we climb in and put on warm clothes.
It's not possible to cook but we are happy drinking red wine, smoking cigarrettes and munching on bread, cheese, nuts, fruit and chocolate. We go to sleep, psyching ourselves up for a cold miserable morning of packing up the tent in the rain.
Col de l'Arech (1802m) to Cabane de Besset (1494m)
We sleep well and luckily neither of us needed to go to the toilet in the night. I wake first and don't hear rain. I peek outside to see a beautiful clear morning with the sun rising above the mountains across the valley. We can't believe our luck and how beautiful our camping spot is. It feels like we are on top of the world. Jeff gets out of the tent to make the morning cuppa and roll our cigs. Jeff takes off the outer tent to hang over a rock to dry while I pack up the sleeping bags and our clothes. The inner tent has just mesh and as I am rolling up the thermarests (on all fours with my big bum sticking up in the air - luckily with knickers on) I hear a "Bonjour!" behind me and turn to see a farmer and his dogs. I clamber to find my clothes to cover myself and wonder later if the farmer deliberated about whether to just keep walking on past quietly. He chatted for a while in French, us chatting in English - neither really understanding much of what the other was saying - but we all agreed it was a beautiful day and 'magnifique' scenery.
We had a slow start as it was gorgeous sitting in the sun watching the farmer way off in the distance moving his sheep - well, directing his dogs to move the sheep as he stood high on a ridge line. We kept agreeing to 'just one more cuppa'.
We ended up sitting on the table outside the cabin, eating apples that had been left in the cabin, filling up water bottles and having 'just one more cig'. We were in no hurry as we'd realised that our reservation for the gite, Maison de Valier, was for the following night - so we had a night up our sleeve.
Wandering down from the cabin we got to some signs pointing us in the direction we had to go... Down! It looked very intimidating at first but the zugs weren't too bad (zigs being a zig-zag up, zags across and zugs down).
At the bottom Jeff decided it was time for a bath in the river and it was here we had our elevenses at about 1pm
We both liked Cabane de Besset instantly - it had beautiful views, it was quite clean and cosy, there was firewood and it had a water hose.
After unpacking and doing the washing, we set up the table outside to have lunch.
We'd saved enough wine last night to have a cup each so the big decision was whether to have this with lunch or dinner. Lunch won. We laid on our thermarests in the sun after lunch finishing our book 'The Hairy Hikers' about two blokes from England who walked the GR 10. As we only have one iPad between us we have been taking turns to read to the other at night which has been fun.
Jeff was very manly cutting the wood and making a nice fire.
We had a soup and noodles for dinner and sat by the fire before heading off to sleep - Jeff in the top bunk with limited headspace and Rach in the bunk below. There was no way I could have gotten onto the top bunk without serious bodily injury.
Cabane de Besset (1494m) to Maison du Valier (927m) via Clot du Lac (1821m)
Jeff lit the fire in the morning while we had our cuppas and breakfast and wrote a thank you comment in the cabin logbook and we set off in our clean socks and underwear at about 9.30.
Our first stop was to examine the cabin at Clot du Lac - and we were happy that we had decided to stay at Cabane de Basset as this one had no water. The walk all the way down to Pla de la Lau to where we had a reservation at Maison du Valier was really pleasant - and we stopped for elevenses at Cabane du Trapech.
We arrived at our gite about 2pm, unpacked, showered, did some washing and sat in the sun drinking beers and wine till it became cold and we rugged up sitting outside until dinner time at 7.30pm. We thought the gite owner was quite unfriendly at first but she seemed to warm to us a bit over dinner and was verging on friendly the next morning at breakfast. Dinner was great. Her husband prided himself on his cooking and we'd recommend people to stay there for the food. The place was also spotless. For dinner we had: first course - some kind of brulee with a salad and sausage; second course - pork fillet with mushroom sauce and different veges presented beautifully; third course - cream brulee. All washed down with another litre of wine. I think the woman thought we were alcoholics and we tried to explain that we had saved half of our afternoon litre of wine to have with luch tomorrow.
Maison du Valier (927m) to Lake Bethmale (1060m) via Cap des Lauses (1892m) and Col d'Auedole (1730m)
It was 9.50am when we set off from the gite after a good breakfast of cereal and toast. However, only 10 minutes down the track nature called. It's a real nuisance to leave your own clean toilet and shower only to have to go when you are on the trail.
The walk up through the forest, past waterfalls and many wild flowers with great views was especially gorgeous this morning. We reached Cap des Lauses (1892m) and continued to Col de lacLazies (1840m) for our lunch at about 2pm. We weren't sure where we'd get to this day and kept walking to the lake (Etang d'Ayes 1694m) collected water from a nearby stream and then kept walking to Col d'Auedole (1730m) and down to Cabane du Clot d'Eliet.
Lake Bethmale (1060m) to Auberge des Deux Rivieres via Seix via Pas de la Core (1395m
We had a great sleep in the tent but woke up thinking that we heard spits of rain. That put us into action stations and we were packed and changed within half an hour. The rain never eventuated so we had tea and muesli bars for breakfast beside the lake before heading off.
The first hour and a half was a walk up to Pas de la Core (1395m).
We had nearly arrived at the gite in Esbints and on the track saw sheep heading towards us with a Bonjour dog. We also heard the shepherd giving instructions to his dog - so presumed he was driving them along on our path so we sat down on the side and Jeff started rolling a couple of cigs. We didn't want to annoy the shepherd as we'd done with Madam Pork-Pie (the name Jeff had gave to the sherphardess, with the pork-pie shaped hat, who had "subjected us to such malevalent invective from a distance").
The shepherd stopped to chat. He was the complete antithesis of his predessessor; a laid-back aging hippy who had learned to speak English in India when he had visited there some 40 years ago. He invited us to have our cigarrettes at the gite but we told him we needed to push on as we hoped to get to the tabac shop at Seix before it closed at lunchtime. He said to give him 5 minutes and he'd drive us to town. I asked him if he had planned to go to town today and he said: "No, but the tabac shop closes at 12.30 and doesn't open till 3.30pm and I smoke so I know".
At Seix we bought our tobacco and one for our new friend and then headed off to find a good place for lunch. There were two restaurants together - an upmarket place with lots of well dressed people and the Auberge beside with a range of characters eating and drinking. As we were in our trekking gear and had our backpacks we decided we'd fit more into the Auberge restaurant clientele.
The woman who greeted us was extremely friendly and told us to put our backpacks where we wanted, showed us where the bathroom was and by the time we got back to our table she had served 2 expressos and a jug of red wine. Lunch was delicious. On the trail it's difficult to get enough salad and veges - and this lunch had both. First course - 3 different salads and a chirizo quessidillo; second course - pork fillet mignon and green beens; third course - Jeff had apple pie and custard and I had chocolate brownie and custard. We also ate two baskets of bread and could hardly move after.
The friendly man at the next table must have thought have thought we needed more wine and gave us his pitcher of red - so we finished that as well before donning our packs and starting the walk to our next destination of the day - Auberge des Deux Rivieres at Pont de la Toule. I'd read about this place when we were tentatively planning places to stay on the first half of the Ariege whilst in Luchon. It's owned and run by a gay couple from Holland and Belgium and who pride themselves on their regional food.
We arrived about 4pm got showered and settled into our room and then set up on the sunny balcony over looking the two rivers and then sampled their Belgium beers. The owners, Robert and Philip were delightful. Robert was in charge of the hotel and front of house in the restaurant and Philip was the chef who had done four years training - and had a great interest in French cooking and especially researching regional dishes from the old days.
We were seated in the restaurant that evening - and it was all aglow with many candles - the electricity had broken. I felt sorry for Robert and Philip as they were embarrassed and had had many problems with the old auberge since taking it over in April. We didn't mind as the food was delicious and the auberge had a lot of character. The electricity repairmen had it all fixed within a couple of hours.
Jeff got rather tipsy!
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