On losing big things and the importance of the small

Pic du Midi d’Ossau is rather large at 2884m in height, isolated from the rest of the range and at times visible from Pau, some 55km away.  So you’d think it would be a difficult thing to lose. Similarly, Lac Gentau, the size of a couple of football pitches that tucks in front of the Pic, and Refuge d’Ayous on its shoreline, the size of a Victorian terrace. Difficult to lose you’d think.

But in a Pyrenéen cloud all landmarks further than a few metres distance disappear into the grey mist and I spent an hour walking in rain soaked circles trying to locate them. I find two other lost French souls and we finally stumbled on the refuge when it loomed within spitting distance.

It is eerie, not to mention difficult, to navigate when walking in the clouds. Occasionally a person emerges from the gloom but otherwise all is silence apart from a cow-bell, a peeping bird, or water moving somewhere in the distance.

A mountain, a lake, and a refuge are not the only things I am capable of losing when out walking.  I lose the desire to speak: following in the words of Borges, ‘don’t talk unless you can improve on silence’, I see no point in vocalising small talk in a mighty landscape.

But while this may appear to border on the misanthropic on my part, small acts of grace and kindness can still always be received. Half an hour to the top of Hourquette d’Arre (2465m), in 30 + degrees of heat, after five hours with no shade and a massive ascent traversing a slope where the trail had been removed by a landslide leaving me with nothing but trust in my boots not to slide in the same direction on an incline of ‘I’m not looking down’ proportions, hitting the last litre of water in celebration as the lacets start to level out but finding a final ascent of scree is required, with legs starting to buckle, I find a single piece of nougat left in the remnants of my picnic bag. All I needed to get me home. Bless you Madame Vignau ...