You know you’re in a remote part of the world when you can’t
get any phone signal … for days. L’Ariége has the reputation for being the most
difficult section of the Pyrénées: there are fewer gîtes, fewer towns for
resupply, fewer people about, and longer, steeper ascents and descents to walk
over each day. But the reality is not quite as fierce as pre-departure
wild imaginings may lead you to believe. The walking can be hard going but is more
than compensated for by the spectacular, by the sense of having an entire
mountain range to yourself, by attempts to market the area more and make
the trails clearer, and the hospitality in some truly stunning gîtes.
The ‘hard going’ is evident in days of anything from three
to seven hours of climbing, with the usual knee breaking descents on the other
side. Fortunately, they love a lacet in l'Ariége and I lost count of how many
I must have walked up and down. Not that I’m complaining, but I was
feeling a bit seasick after an hour or so of tight turns on the descent from
Col de l’Arech.
The weather can add to the ‘hard going’ no matter what part
of the world but this was the first time I had to re-route a section as the
evening thunder storm rolled in and stayed. The next day the weather would not
settle and the mountains were invisible in torrential rain and mist. It took
several days to get some sunshine back as the valley’s slowly cleared and the
leaden sky sucked up wisps of cloud.
But on the side of the ‘spectacular’, after the rain the
rivers and waterfalls were in full throttle. This section of the GR10 passes
from high pastures to woods and ravines, and later the pines and granite
cirques of karst country. It also contains some near perfect traverses of
varying length: from the twenty minutes it takes to walk along the side of the
valley from the Mines de Bentaillou (1870m) to Col de la Catauère (1706m); the
last hour through forest along an old aquaduct into Marc; the dappled mule
track above a roaring ravine from Pas de la Core (1385m) to the hamlet of Esbints
(810m), tucked into the hillside in the forest; or the three hours from the
Barrage de l’etang d’Izourt (1647m) to Goulier (1110m).
L’etang d’Izourt, an artificial blue behind a grey barrage,
is trapped by 270 degrees of high peaks. It is stunning. But the traverse from
this lake is back in the ‘hard going’ category. It is not flagged in the
Topoguide as difficult but it should be … in big red capital letters. The trail
is in bad repair as the path is little used now the gîte in Goulier is closed
(due to reopen in October 2017). At times it disappeared into heather clinging
onto steep slopes, at others times it became a rock scramble around cliff edges.
It is totally exposed with a 500m to 700m drop to the valley floor. With few secure places to stop and take the pack off I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I’d like to but did
remember to look back occasionally at the clouds and light working against each other over the mountains (with thanks to Seamus Heaney for the imagery).
Turning the nose of the spur and descending to
Goulier I finally found someone to point me in the direction of the path down to
Auzat: an ugly village of powerlines, pipes and abandonment. All through l’Ariege are ruined orries, cabins and hamlets, abandoned in France’s rural exodus towards the industrial
revolution. Auzat is dead.
Even the bus is long gone and I had to catch a taxi to Tarrascon sur Ariege (30km
away) to make my train. It’s a sad place to leave the mountains but also a
marker of how isolated l’Ariege can feel.
‘Solitude’, if that is what you’re after, is a strong feature
of this section of the GR10. Previous blogs have highlighted my Greta
Garbo-like desire to be alone when out walking and l'Ariége is as close as
it’s come to the Pyrenees being all mine. As with the traverse from d’etang
d’Izourt, from Artigue to Fos I was the only soul on the mountain all day apart
from a troop of isards who grazed warily but without running as I ambled by. Perhaps
because it is more isolated there was more wildlife present than previous years, including birds,
foxes, snakes, and something akin to a pine martin or stout that popped up from time to time.
The sense of solitude extended to several
‘install yourself’ gites where you make yourself at
home, have a cup of tea and wait for your hosts to eventually show up to cook dinner. Twice
I was the only person in the gîte, sleeping the sleep of a single person: one
eye and ear always half open. Interestingly, most of the single people I ran
into were women wild camping along the trail: a moment of recognition that
required no translation.
It is always ‘hard going’ to manage the desire for
solitude with other people’s desire to interrupt it to talk about their dietary
requirements and the pain in their knees, but while Mz Austen may suggest that
once names have been exchanged ‘there’s no escaping the acquaintance now’, I
beg to differ. I resolutely refuse to give in to any attempt at attachment (not
counting requests for help obviously), and always add in a couple of short days
or a random rest day to lose the overly attached.
Still, some sections of l'Ariege were quite busy, related to attempts by the local tourist industry to boost numbers to the
region.
PassAran, for example, is a
new sportive hike between France and Spain following parts of the GR10. It
looks tough but has become very popular, especially with the Spanish, helping
to keep the gîtes and refuges on the course in business. There are obvious
signs of improving the paths on this particular section, with better signage,
for example, and the three young men trimming the trail with whipper snippers
above Maison du Valier. Of course the down side is overcrowding and perhaps
people taking to the trail without figuring out that it’s not the middle of a
city. How the young men got their float tyres, deck chairs, £20 pop up tents
and sound system up to l’etang d’Ayes (a solid hike up from the parking bays to
1694m) is a mystery at once impressive and annoying.
Refuge de l’etang d’Araing was also busy with walkers,
fishermen, climbers, feral shepherds and a man who seemed to have
run there (which in fact he had as I discovered when I ran into him the next day for a chat
– he was spending his weekend running around this section of the mountains with
just the slight problem that he had forgotten exactly where he had left his car
in comparison to where he thought he was on the map). I noticed that everyone at
my table (I’m the only woman out of ten) was wearing a GPS watch –
about £3000 in watches alone – all of which started beeping at 6.30am the next
morning.
This sense of parts of the region being spruced up seemed to
affect the gîtes along the way as well, some of which are the best I’ve ever
stayed in for cheap comfort and superb food.
Maison du Valier, for example, insisted on
guests using their fresh sheets, and the hostess spoke French so deliberately that
I could understand everything! Similarly,
Village de
Vacances de Marc has clean sheets and a buffet where I was instructed to push the chicken
to the side of my plate and eat as much of the rest of the paella as I wanted.
There seemed to be a competition along the trail to see who
could make the best picnic lunch. Marcel from Fos is up there with four pieces
of fruit, the ubiquitous bread and cheese, a cereal bar and last night’s left
over goat’s cheese crostini. But Village de Vacances de Marc gets the prize:
two hunks of break; a chunk of cheese; two boiled eggs, already peeled; a whole
tomato; apple AND nectarine; mayonnaise tubes; and TWO packets of crisps.
All other meals were consistently a tour de force of local
cuisine for ridiculous prices. At Artigues, it was truite bio, tarte de
myrtille, rosé de table and kick arse views of the mountains. The serious
comfort food of tarteflette (without the lardons for the veggies) of
Gîte Presbytère in Aulus les Bains made me institute
a Montelbano (no talking) rule on the other English speaker at the table (I
literally said to another human being that I needed to concentrate on my potatoes).
Auberge des deux rivières
offered a three course gourmet dinner and the smell of fresh pain au chocolat
in the morning. The restaurant was all wood, stone and stuffed animal heads. It
was one of those evenings when the manager, Robert, who is barman, waiter,
maitre d’, and translator, effortlessly switching between English, French, and
Dutch (he’s Belgium), wanted to proudly surprise me with a starter that turned
out to be turkey stomach confited in duck fat (I didn’t have the heart to tell
him I was vegetarian). The chef arrived with my ‘surprise’ salad, dressed in an
apron over his running shorts, while the old sheep dog did a circuit of tables
looking for handouts. Everything came from ‘up the road’ and
tasted better than anything I paid £200 for at Le Gavroche.
But the farm gîtes of
Esbints and
Rouze were my favourites. Esbints was
a collective of cats, dogs, chickens and two lovely young farmers who run sheep
for meat as well as produce vegetables, fruit, jams and sorbets. The dogs spent
most of their time chasing the chickens and fighting for attention with the cat
that goes off stalking phantoms. It is a low-tech farm in keeping with the
self-sufficient atmosphere of the region. Our host carried loads of straw on
his back like a Nepali, from the field to the barn. Everything we ate was from
the farm and I get daal! Oh joy. Not cheese or eggs, but real daal. The French
tried it but preferred their mouton. The guardians, as in other gîtes in
l’Ariege, joined their guests at the table and over dinner the discussion
turned to farm life and bergers. I have started to understand how respected
they are in this region for the job they do.
At Gîte de Rouze I was greeted by a troop of staring goats
standing in the middle of the lane, who then spookily surrounded me, wanting a
scratch behind the ear, and then followed me all the way to the gîte door. The
patou appeared to check me out but just wanted a scratch behind the ear as well
(note: never scratch a patou behind the ear in the wild). The garden was full
of vegetables and a dairy that makes 20 types of cheese.
Our
dinner was entirely from the farm: bread, baby goat (chevrette) for the
carnivores, butter, milk, cheese, yoghurt, vegetables, jam and sorbet from
Esbints. The fire was lit, there was a big jug of red wine and talk turned to the
local protests over re-wilding bears, including something said about people who
live in cities and are vegetarian (I decided discretion was the better part of
valour and held off announcing that I think re-wilding is a good idea). In the morning our
breakfast bread was warm! Seriously, someone got up at 5am to
make bread for us. They left our bills stapled to our picnic bags and asked that
we put the money in the unlocked cash box by the door.
The one exception to the exceptional hospitality was Refuge
de Bassies. The spectacular setting at the foot of a circle of granite peaks
did not make up for being told I had to buy my own toilet paper. The heating
couldn’t be turned on because the heater didn’t work so at night it was every
layer on plus four blankets (which was probably a bit excessive as I had to
shed thermals and two blankets during the night). There were no lights in the
dorms or vestibule and in the morning the main dining room lights didn’t come
on till 0800. Although this may be related to their solar power it didn’t make
for a cheery establishment. I did get a room to myself though.
Notes to self:
- Icebreaker really is the best. After seven hours of ascent, sweating
in 32 degrees of heat, yes, I’m going to sleep in it and wear it the next day.
- Gortex really is better. I’ve worn a Berghaus brand wet
weather jacket for years along with gortex pants for really wet days. They were
both severely tested in a Pyrénéen storm this year: six hours of walking in
rain ranging in intensity from a shower to sustained torrential downpour. The
results: legs completely dry but the top was very damp and cold. I’m now going
gortex all the way.
- Embarrassingly, I somehow always manage to be as slow on the
descent as the ascent, so after watching a young woman with a full pack
gracefully descend a boulder field I decided I can do better by sucking in the
stomach, tucking the butt under and leaning back into my sac à dos. It feels
odd, but it seems to work. I'm open to other suggestions.
