A Guide to Pic du Canigou

Go up into the gods, along a damp, mossy ridge that is covered in mist and rain in the middle of summer. That wasn't in the forecast. Go clockwise, against the general flow of traffic, Catalans wanting to plant their flag on the peak, and trekkers crossing along the spine of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Reach Chalet des Cortalets in 4.5 hours. Good going, says one of the caretakers as I arrive at 11am. I am solo, can move faster upwards, and there is noone on the trail until the intersection with the main route to the Pic. But speed, as you know, is not the essence of a mountain. Dry off over several hours in front of the fire with a goats cheese salad. Slow down. Do nothing. Read. Watch groups come and go having made their ascent. It is cool and fresh after a week of plains heat suffocating the will to move.

In the evening there are just 20 or so of us staying overnight. I share a table with an English physicist whose French I don't understand, and a Frenchman who soon lets me know that any talk of the World Cup is a sujet tabou. We chat about the weather, identity and the food instead. In France, never let the fact that you are half way up a mountain deter you from a four course meal and du vin.

Be first up with the sun over the mediterranean. You can see Banyuls sur Mer from here. At 6.30 sit with the warden in the kitchen for coffee and bread. He used to be a mountain guide but with a young family he now works as a warden in the summer and a guide in north Africa in the winter. He will see you off on the trail with directions. The Pic (2784m) is clear but still 90 minutes away over vague morain. It is a slow boulder walk and scree slide. The rain and cloud have cleared and remain distant the rest of the day so the view from the top proliferates along the Pyrenees, still patched with snow, across Spain and France, down the Cady Valley. And it's all yours.

There is now the descent. Le Chimenee and 50 metres of fiercely angled scrambling. After 'the fall' (see 2008 blog, Italy), any thought of climbing down anything is no longer a comfortable one. But it's better than going back the way you've come. That's boring. So make like an isard (mountain goat), go slow and in the end you'll get away with only chipping a nail (although your upper arms and shoulders may be a wee bit sore the next day ... perhaps gripping a little tighter than an isard?). And the reward once the chimenee is descended and the morain traversed ... a walk that is a study in perfection. Think gently rolling downhill through a wide valley, into the forest and fields of wildflowers again crossing the Cady river as it begins life torrenting down a narrowing gorge, then walking high above it as it gathers momentum, until eventually coming out at the Refuge de Marialles for a cup of tea and the last of your bread and cheese packed yesterday. Sit on a green hillock looking back up the valley, past crags and high pasture to the tors of the Pyrenees, and begin to yodel.

Now follow the red and white GR10 through lowland forest and come out eventually (9 hours later) next to Les Thermes (a hotspring bath house) where your partner will have conveniently booked you in for a massage and soak followed by a lovely dinner at the only good bistro in Vernet les Bains.