Hitchhiking for the 21st Century

There comes a time when we have to accept that Eurostar has become an elite form of transport that is no longer generally affordable (£176 one way for the 6am train to Paris … I don’t think so, Eurostar).

There also comes a time when, as a Francophile and train nerd, I have to accept that even France’s rail network has its limits. No matter how much I stare at the timetable, no train will appear that can get me from the region of Suisse Normande to St Malo on a Friday evening without having to first go east to Paris and then come back west again to the Breton Coast. With no bus service that evening either, I was potentially stranded in Caen while my partner was hanging out in a posh hotel on the beach.

Now was the time to rethink hitching and all the horror stories about it that women have welded into our subconscious by anxious parents (and I should never have watched Rutger Hauer in ‘The Hitcher’, which did for car sharing what ‘Jaws’ did for my ocean swimming).

This, however, is the 21st Century, and while that doesn’t mean we lose the little alarms bells in our heads entirely, it does mean we have apps. BlaBlaCar, for example, is doing for car sharing what AirBnB has done for spare rooms. Started in France, it now covers 22 countries with over 100 million members, allowing people with cars to connect with passengers who need to travel in the same direction and share the journey.

For those who think society is catastrophically breaking down, be comforted by the knowledge that there is a high degree of trust in these online relationships, with the usual star ratings and feedback facilities to give added confidence. BlaBla work hard at overcoming our innate anxieties about getting into a car with strangers. In a recent internal report, 88% of their members say they trust other BlaBla members, which is not far below the 94% and 92% trust we have in family and friends respectively. Work colleagues only come in at 58% trust which begs the question why anyone feels comfortable car-pooling to work.

Setting up an account in ten minutes, I find Tania driving from Caen to St Malo at roughly the time I needed and who could meet me at the station where I was arriving by bus from Clécy that evening. With some judicious re-arranging of suitcases and dog accessories, my backpack is squashed into the boot of a spacious Corolla, and I slide into a seat in the back. Two other young women are taking up the spare seats, making it four complete strangers meeting in Caen, trusting we will all be at the station on time, and trusting that none of us will become Rutger Hauer in whack-job mode.

I do, however, become very conscious that I have 25 years on all of them, that my French is terrible, and that they smell very nice. I, on the other hand, look like a woman who has been camping for four days, walked 20 kilometres to get to a bus stop in the heat and rain, and who now has that faint smell of damp sheep about me from the merino thermals I’m wearing.

After obligatory ‘bonjours’, we are mostly in silence. Passenger 2, next to me in the back, puts her airpods in. I stare out the window. Time passes. Inevitably the passengers have no control over the car play-list but I have now caught up on some of the latest in French rap. We also have no control over the driver’s abilities, and I would suggest Tania stop chewing her fingernails and keep both hands on the wheel, and perhaps could smooth out those lane changes a little, but we arrive in St Malo in one piece.

There is some negotiation over drop off points. Passenger 1 leaves us on the outskirts of town, but as it turns out Passenger 2 also needs a street near the beach so I am delivered two doors from my hotel.

While the train option would have been over £100 and taken seven hours, my 2.5 hour car share cost £12.50, two other passengers also got to where they needed to go, Tania covered her costs, and we helped out the environment a little bit. More importantly, sharing the voyage reminds us that strangers are not always scary people. If the worst that happens is you end up sharing a car with someone vaguely smelling of sheep then it’s not a bad way to travel.

Returning to Happy Places (Reflections on Familiarity and Time)

 

The force of tectonic plates crashing into each other at the speed of deep time, rounded out by several thousand years of grinding glaciers, created not only the Pyrénéen chain but the great gash valleys that run up to its wall. From Luz Saint Sauveur, one winding gouge abruptly ends at the Cirque de Gavarnie, a majestic amphitheatre of granite and limestone layers that buckle and fold around each other.

I am returning to this happy place, its familiar grooves and peaks, largely because I haven’t had time to plot out and prepare a new route this year. But then mountains are like that Zen river no one ever steps in twice. Turn left instead of right, go up a little higher, at a different time of day, with different weather, and it’s somewhere you’ve never been before. By the time I’m at the base of the Cirque’s largest cascade, with dozens of other walkers, thunder is repeating itself rapid fire, echoing around the concave wall, followed immediately by lightening. Then it’s a race, storm versus human, and we run, in hiking boots, to the nearest shelter as wind, heavy rain then hail arrives. 

This Cirque, at this moment in time, is a landscape I’ve never met before: dark and moody and crashing turbulence overhead. A few hardy souls continue to go forward but I wait it out with a large hot chocolate. In an hour it’s over and I wander down, slightly damp, through humid forest and pasture, the river, well beyond Zen reflection, now a torrent to my left.

The rest of the week is unsettled, skirting squalls and thunder, and requiring the additional effort of on and off and on and off again rain jacket. But the clouds bring light and shadow into the valley, and rise and fall over the Cirque so that its outline shifts each day. When it clears a little I decide I should have a crack at Pic du Péméne, le petit if not le grand summit. It is the usual sharp incline from valley floor to estive plateau and then long lacets up to a ridge, a drop down the other side to skirt the small pic and rise to the ridge again, this time facing a steep rocky bulge to the top. 

I stare at it, decide against it as it’s hard to see where the path goes and if there is any scrambling or severe drop offs, and have a picnic instead as vultures and eagles soar past at the same level. I walk back to the foot of the bulge once more, without backpack and poles to see if lightness helps, but still decide against it. I have figured out that my fear is not so much the drop off but getting half-way up and not being able to get down again, which would be excruciatingly embarrassing.

But then, as always, someone appears, running up (really, running!); a local out for a stretch who has the advantage of growing up in this magical kingdom. I follow his lead, crawling up for the first few metres safe in the knowledge that he’s too far ahead to see me, but then eventually talking myself into standing. Catching up with him at the penultimate cairn, I decline the last 50 metres as the short crest ends in a sharp scramble with jelly leg inducing exposure. The view is the same.

Before he disappeared down the mountain my guide pointed across the valley to a notch in the skyline above the Cirque and recommended I walk up there. I thought I had misunderstood as the Cirque is 1500m (ish) at its highest, and from where we were standing, very much the vertical wall. But on the map this notch has a name, Brèche de Roland. It is legendary as a 100m high ‘door’ between France and Spain that can be accessed behind the Cirque following the contours of classic mountain terrain: long lacets through steep estives, then plateau, shorter lacets over steep rocky trails, plateau, then even shorter lacets across steeper scree shoved to the side by thawing torrents. Throw in fording a few gushing glacial streams powering their way down to the valley floor and it’s a fun day out. 

Initially following the lead of other hikers was a bad idea as it turned out they were 20-somethings who had been raised by Isards. I eventually found my own way following cairns, more or less, and after four hours, crossing a final ridge, the world as I had known it was now inverted: above the height of the main cascade on the other side of the Cirque; above the clouds that rolled up the valley; looking down on minute others looking up from where I’d been two days before in a storm. The upper layers of the Cirque, the tucks and folds of ancient rock, were in full view. An elegant refuge sat in an impossible position hanging onto the mountain side at the base of a steep moraine mass that people ascended and descended up to the brèche, to and from Spain. It is beyond words, beyond spectacular.

Despite the sense of deep time such places generate, at the scale of the human I only had 30 minutes to linger with rain predicted for 2pm. I asked the refuge guardian how difficult the descent straight down into the Cirque was and his response was pragmatic: ‘there is an immediate drop off the other side which you have to climb down and if you slip you’ll die’. So I’ll be going back the way I came then! Even with the best of maps, the unfamiliar is always a challenge; a metaphor, if you want to stretch it, for much of human angst. 

Returning to the recently familiar but now in reverse, the boulders, roaring streams, steep moraine and lacets must be approached differently with gravity pulling downwards into clouds and out again. I disappear and am thankful for my GPS that continues to ping out a route. However, the predicted thunderstorm doesn’t appear apart from a few drops and one desultory rumble and I emerged into Plateau de Bellevue above the village in warm sunshine. 

After the usual routine of washing me and clothes I wander up to the world’s most beautiful bar, facing the Cirque by the stream, just outside the village, for tea and tarte de myrtille. Slowly all the walkers and riverside sitters thin out and dissipate as clouds thicken and time approaches evening. I sit and ponder nothing for an hour or two. It's a strange pastime, to hike to the top of things, sit for 30 minutes or so and then hike back down again. I notice the difference between through-hiking, when you need to get somewhere as justification for the effort, and up and back for no reason other than seeing something. In the meantime, the cloud finally comes down completely, and the Cirque, and pondering minds, begin to sleep.

Familiarity can of course be a very useful thing, particularly when not carrying a map. Having already walked the section from Gavarnie to Refuge Baysellance three years before, a section that is basically the walkers equivalent of an A Road, there were some vague landmarks imprinted in memory … a statue of Mary, a refuge … that gave a general sense of confidence I was walking in the right direction until hitting the familiar red and white balisage of the GR10. The walk along the valley and upwards was as beautiful as I remembered it: early morning cloud eventually cleared from the contours of a valley; reaching Barrage Ossoue and its familiar river plateau; and the knackering long lacets and rocky corniches with precipitous drops into valleys below.

But then, passing the familiar grottos carved into the hillside, with the refuge almost in sight, for some inexplicable reason other than just tiredness, I missed the clearly signed intersection and started following unfamiliar cairns towards the Vignemale glacier. Not seeing anyone behind me still didn’t register a warning and instead I dug in deeper until an additional hour of faffing about on scree slopes finally got me backtracking to the right turning. Arriving late at the refuge, tea and chocolate cake were required to ease the pain and indignity of stupidity but there was still enough light left to watch groups going up and down Petite Vignemale before sunset. 

As usual, the refuge was rammed (it’s one of the last Saturdays of the season) and a wall of noise. Two young women sit next to me and start teaching the group of older men in the corner how to play ‘pick up sticks’. Two Spanish on the other side play chess. There are card games, chatter, beer, coffee, beer. I knit socks. Dinner is in two shifts and I’m at a table of mostly Spanish who politely chat in English for my benefit. 

In the morning the wind is cold and strong and I worry about the Spanish who are climbing Vignemale today. Walking with my back to her north face feels a bit rude, but I am on unfamiliar trail again, over a boulder field towards col d’Arraille, well in sight at 2583m. Boulder fields require care, intense concentration, and ideally long legs, to avoid turning an ankle or sliding with loose rock into a ravine. The stream of narrative in the head has to quieten for a few hours and focus: three points on the ground, testing for movement, transfer weight, three points on the ground, and so it goes downwards over rocks, moraine, and lacets, lacets, lacets. Marmots occasionally startle me but they are fat and lazy from summer grazing and can’t be arsed doing any more than peeping a few times and loping away.

With my GPS strap broken, time was tucked away in a pocket and no longer readily accessible, but reaching Refuge d’Estom, beautifully positioned next to a lac at the foot of Pic de la Sède, I know I’m hungry and an omelette is inhaled along with the last of the cheese. Time then stretched out the walk down this final gash valley to Cauteret, with its racing cascades and soft forest; the sun roasting trail, becoming path becoming road, and the now familiar routine for finishing in a happy place: hotel, washing, a spa treatment at the Thermes, a glass of rosé, and reflection on having so little time despite the evidence of millions of years around me. 

 

(Gavarnie to Cauteret, September 2022)

 

Meeting the (Dutch) von Trapps

Cirque de Gavarnie is a natural wonder: 3000 metres at its widest, up to 1500 metres from its base, a 422m waterfall to round out its list of attractions, this natural amphitheatre has been carved out by the movement of the earth over millions of years. With just a 90 minute easy walk or donkey ride from the village to the foot of the cascade, it is unsurprising that in the summer season hundreds arrive daily to see this astonishing colosseum: bus loads of French, Spanish, British, and other assorted world travellers, scouts and school trips.

Among this maelstrom of humanity, let's meet the Dutch von Trapp family; a collective of four adults and six children ranging from three years old to tweenies, in all their tall, blonde glory (and yes, I know the von Trapps were actually Austrian but go with me on this one). 

I truly admire the effort of parents that want to bring their kids into nature, to march them up to a plateau to admire the view, even when the kids may not actually want to be marched to the top, are not that impressed when they get there, and can't wait to get back down because that's where the ice cream is.  

I appreciate that they might not have been used to so much ascent, even if it is Walking 101, but the von Trapp seniors were not put off by their children's lack of enthusiasm ... bless them. As I passed them on the way to Plateau Bellevue, they cheerfully ploughed on, accompanied by what I imagined was a Dutch rendition of 'These are a few of my favourite things'. 

I passed them again later that day, bundled into the nooks and crannies of shade next to a river, trying to manage their small humans' hunger, fatigue and the call of nature, which involved holding the smallest human over the stream so they could free flow their pee into it. 

At this point, just a gentle reminder of outdoor etiquette ... while I appreciate that Cirque de Gavarnie is a relatively easy stroll, with a hotel and three course meal at the end, giving it the appearance of an extension of 'home space', please don't let your kids pee in the pristine glacial streams that run past the camp site and through the village, that people bath in and drink from. It's public commons, not your own private toilet. The same goes for the man who's job it is to sweep up the crap left on the path by the donkeys ferrying people up to the Cirque. 'What a great idea', I thought to myself, 'collecting all the crap to put on someone's garden'. Mais non! His job is to shovel it straight into the same pristine glacial stream that, to emphasise the disgust, people drink from and bath in. 

Two days later I was really impressed to meet the Dutch Von Trapps again at Refuge Baysellance, a solid three hours for adults of upward hiking, along narrow, rocky paths with some steep drop offs. The three year old had been in a carrier but all the other kids had managed it under their own power. While missing their matching clothes made out of curtains, their infectious energy nevertheless took over the refuge, and children and noise bounced off the walls.   

I was less impressed that, due to a miscalculation by the refuge guardians of how many Von Trapps there actually were, I was relegated out of a comfortable bed in a room they now commandeered to the worst spot in the refuge: top bunk, under the slanting roof with only a handful of centimetres between head and hard surface, on the far side of a snoring man between me and the ladder down, with his wife and child's head on the opposite side meeting mine in the middle. Boxed in, there was no getting down to pee until everyone else was up in the morning, so I tried not to dream of pristine glacial streams. At breakfast, snoring man finds me, not to apologise for keeping me and everyone else in the dorm up all night, but to ask if his son can have his refuge slippers back that'd I'd accidentally put on in the dark, despite there being dozens of other identical pairs lying around that he could have used.

The Dutch von Trapps, on the other hand, having slept soundly in their own room, were gleefully up, packed, and ready to descend with what I imagined was a rendition of 'So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye' carried on the wind and fading out as they disappeared into sunlight and mountains sprinkled with saccharin.

[Note to self: to avoid the appearance of misanthropy best to wait till after a good night's sleep before writing notes, or think of a few of my favourite things 😇]

Finding a Home in Lourdes for an Oversized Candle

Backpack on and heading for France, I sat near four women from the Irish Traveller community on the London Overground. The youngest, noticing my backpack, asked where I was off to. ‘Hiking in the south of France, in the Pyrénées’. She recalled how beautiful it was in Lourdes when she was there, so I mention I’m passing through on the way to Gavarnie. And in that moment of connection, in the space of minutes in a public transit carriage in east London, a story of loss and violence and love and faith unfolds.

Could I put a flower in the river and say a prayer for a daughter, B. Could I say a prayer and light a candle for a 21 y.o. son murdered five years ago, as the family still fights for justice. A copy of his funeral service and photo is placed in my hand. Could I say a prayer for R., for the S. family, the D. family, for all Travellers. I’m given £10 for the candles. I refuse. It’s stuffed into my bag. Then another £5.

They ask me if I’m not afraid on my own and for some reason I say: ‘My god is with me’. As an agnostic I appreciate faith but I have a difficult relationship with the idea of god so I have no idea where that came from. The train pulled into my stop, it was hugs and kisses all around and we were away in different directions.

And so I found myself, the next day, jogging down to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, between my night train pulling in and the 90 minutes before my bus to Gavarnie. Having passed through the city many times and never looked inside, I have long been curious about the power of this place and its ability to pull towards it the collection of humanity always waiting at the station: pilgrims and religious orders, the ill and infirm, the desperate and thankful, all hoping for a miracle.

I arrived just as the complex was opening at 8am and having done no preparation I realised I had no idea where I was going. With the river Pau running on the right, the almost empty promenade at this time of the morning was dominated at its end by the gothic structure of the Basilica Notre Dame du Rosaire. Going by past visits to Cathedrals I figured the candles would be in that general direction and sure enough, in an excellent demonstration of how cultural reproduction works and the lasting power of catechism classes, underneath a vaulted walkway to the Basilica were self-service candle stands with honesty boxes for the money.

I like lighting a candle when I’m visiting a church but at most I’ll stick a euro in a tin and buy a tea light. This being Lourdes, £10’s worth of candle was about 60cm long (I donated the remaining £5 although it did cross my mind that the Catholic church was already raking it in charging £10 for candles and didn’t need any more … note ‘difficult relationship with God’). Carrying my cargo into the Basilica I found the usual tealight altar but nothing that resembled a place for a two foot long candle.

Back out again I could hear singing further down the complex so wandered around the Basilica, bolstered by seeing a few other people carrying giant candles in that general direction. And it is here, not in the grandiose church, that I stumbled on the actual grotto where Bernadette Soubirous saw the apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1858. The rough hewn cave set a few metres above the ground now holds a more solid statue of Mary, while the lower alcove houses a small altar for priests to conduct outdoor services to the hundred or so mostly elderly pilgrims seated in serried semi-circles in front (in this instance, an Italian tour group).

Set below the statue of Mary was a metal ‘tree’ with oversized candles. This, I thought, must be where my candle goes, so I join the queue, inching my way forward. As I got to the front I held out my candle as an offering to the priest who looked somewhat bemused as he held out a bread wafer as an offering to me. Realising I had just gate crashed the Italians holy communion service I took the wafer and moved to the side still clutching my candle, and remembering the admonishments of a past boyfriend’s mother that as a Protestant I should NOT be taking the body and blood of a Catholic God (note ‘difficult relationship with God’). Too late now.

Spotting the Italian’s tour guide I asked if he knew what I should do with my candle. He quietly took me aside and pointed to some half dome sheds across the river, wishing me ‘bon camino’ in the process (I still had my backpack on at this point so he thinks I’m on my way to Santiago de Compostela, the famous Way of St James pilgrimage from France to Spain).

Across the footbridge, the candle sheds held hundreds of lights, hopes, and wishes. The Sanctuary has that feeling of places where people have prayed again and again, thousands of times, for uncountable years, for relief, more than happiness I’m guessing, from the suffering of this mortal coil, and heaven knows it’s been a shit few years. Facing death or illness or trauma or grief, wanting to die peacefully looking into the face of a god, take comfort where you can. If it’s believing that a virgin mother of a Jewish radical called Jesus appeared in a grotto in southern France and that she will help, so be it.

For the women on the train, my task is done. In the half an hour or so I’d been floundering around the Sanctuary the number of pilgrims had now swelled to hundreds and soon would be thousands as tour buses began to appear at the front gate. I find a quiet place for the candle. I find wild flowers and place them in the river, with H.’s funeral service left under a stone so he’ll always be carried by the water. For B., for R., for H., for the S. family, the D. family, and all the Travellers, may you be safe, may you be well, may you be at peace.

May the road rise to meet you,

may the wind be always at your back,

may the sun shine warm upon your face,

the rains fall soft upon your fields,

and until we meet again

may [whichever God or Universe you choose to believe in] hold you in the palm of [their] hand.

The day le Tour came to town ...

The plans for the start of this summer's Pyrénéan stroll came to a sudden halt in Pierrefitt-Nestalas, as the bus driver announced the road ahead to my start point, Luz Saint Sauveur, was blocked. It remained a mystery to me why the route ahead was blocked until I started to see growing numbers of people camping along the side, various professional cycle team banners, and the iconic green livery of a Tour de France sprint marker across the road. Initial irritation turned into a small puja to the gods of cyclists and, by default, Tour de France lovers everywhere.

As there was nowhere to go until the road opened later that evening, I joined all the other residents, groupies and stranded, finding a spot  to settle in for a long wait until the Tour arrived later that afternoon. Sporadic team vehicles, officials, sponsors, media and merchandise cars, passing at varying proximity and speeds, from breakneck to 'buy a t-shirt' languid, kept us vaguely amused until 2pm ish when activity picked up and the tannoy announced the arrival of 'le Caravan'.

Le Caravan is the bit you never see on TV and probably never will because what people are really waiting for is to have things thrown at them by giant chickens and fromage on wheels. Floats representing each of the major sponsors toss key rings, fridge magnets, car window sun shades, haribos, biscuits, cheese, sausage, stickers, pens, water, newspapers, hats, and pennants (I got one of those). Children and grown up humans scrambled in the air and on the ground for the bread and circuses. 'Eye of the Tiger' and bubble machines pumped up the energy and a general feeling of surrealism.


After an hour of giddiness the caravan disappeared and again we were left with a mix of boredom and anticipation until close to 4pm when the sound of five helicopters overhead signalled that something was about to happen. In seconds, a lead group of cyclists, spotted jersey in front, blurred past. Then the peloton clattered through with glimpses of recognisable team colours; Moviestar and Ineos among them. Around them, between them, motorbikes and cars sped by with centimetres to spare. Another group passed to more cheers from the crowd; then a few stragglers; and finally just one, the cyclist no-one wants to be at the back of the field.

After waiting five hours in minutes it was over, and I realised that I was still stuck in Pierrefitt-Nestalas. It was too late for the evening bus and I tried hitching with no luck, so a €40 taxi fare finally got me to Luz. But seeing the hundreds of amateur cyclists freewheeling back down from the Col Du Tournelet, the end of the day's stage, and sitting with every woman, man and dog in lycra, from France, Spain, Italy, the UK, Australia and the USA, dissecting the result over a rosé while holding my hard won pennant, it was worth it.

 

Finishing Things

After 53 days over four years, 892km, 50,700 metres of ascent and 49,700 metres of descent, 100s of insect bites, several blisters, one pair of boots, a torch and a couple of t-shirts, I finally made Banyuls-sur-Mer, the end point of the GR10.

It had been a steep tumble down, one last cruel kick up on stony path, passing the fresh faces and good looking white clothes of those just starting out in Ibiza hats and impractical plimsolls, and then a final plunge into vineyards and olive groves. It would be pleasant on a cool day but the heat was scorching and the rubber of my soles felt increasingly bendy on melting tar. The trail eventually became a street and then a town that I’d been to before but didn’t remember in its current arrangement.

You think there would be some fanfare, particularly having belted out the last three hours without a stop in the full heat of afternoon, but the rest of Banyuls was heading to the beach, to a café, to the shops, completely uninterested in the sweaty remains of yet another hiker standing in front of the commemorative plaque on the wall of the Mairie. I took a selfie of my pack and headed for shade, a litre of red cordial on ice, another litre of water, a cup of Darjeeling, and later, a litre of coconut juice.

The heat made memories of this final stage an improbable smudge of hours into days, with only dust and cicadas threading time into a semblance of coherence as the trail rolled downwards to the sea. I tried to rank ‘the best of the GR10’, with the section from Plateau de Beille to Pic du Canigou as the possible winner with its deep valleys, rivers, peaks, and impromptu mountain lake picnic spots. But memories of Val de l’Aspe and l’Haute Pyrénées disrupt attempts to make hierarchies. So instead I made myself recall aspects of each day out of assemblages of trail, landscape, and body.

The first moments like the last ascend and descend, through forests, occasionally passing through or ending in a village that is dead to the world except for the few who return in the summer gathering respite from the towns. Between rifts, the trail opens up into a wide alpine valley and becomes a series of rural paths and old Roman road. There is a crescendo towards Pic du Canigou and then, en balcon, traversing its side, looking east through layers of blue, the ridges of foothills down to wrinkles and plains and lakes to the sea, the massif at my back receding behind cloud. Distance is interspersed with the need to scan the close at hand, looking to the feet to avoid cow pats, breaks in the trail, shaky rock hopping streams starting out life in narrow ravines. 

The landscape changes into dry, rocky escarpment that smells like home. Roc de France, one of several great granite outcrops, cracked and ready to roll, grandstanding over gnarly old beech lurching in all directions that look like they may come alive à la Lord of the Rings. I can’t get my bearings in the forest. It is soft under foot, padding accumulated over years of leaf fall, and dense canopy traps the heat so that despite the shade I drip sweat.

From Col de la Cirère, a partition is rent and heat radiates upwards and outwards, reverberating off stone. The trees become eucalypts but not quite, and the undergrowth becomes scrub smelling of sage. Farmhouses (mas), red tile roofs with Spanish outlooks, are tucked into corners with handy source pipes for impromptu showers. Archaeological sites promise that Hannibal has been this way. For a second, there is a motorway but also a cold Agrum from the first kiosk I see, downed in 30 seconds. It hits 41 degrees in the hell that is Col du Perthus and close to Col de l’Ouillat an entire family has conked out under some scraps of shade.

The final Col is a ‘drive to’ tourist destination, settled into forest; a place of giant pines quietly screening out the heat, overseeing BBQs and dog walking, camping and wild cows. The hum of cicadas heralds the arrival of fellow walkers: dripping Germans, French and the English Prof (long pickled in alcohol and nicotine but completing the Haute Route Pyrénées, so, respect).

The path weaves in and out of arbitrary frontiers; the border fence a sparse bit of barbed wire keeping out immigrant cows. Accents become less French and the yellow and red of Catalan is everywhere. There is fervent discussion at the table, and narratives of history recalled, handed down each generation over centuries to dig deeper the furrows of a dispute that is not going away any time soon. Other comings and goings overlay such conflicts. Passing time before dinner at Las Illas, I idle slowly around the village tracing Les Évadés: those fleeing Vichy France (including Jews, British pilots, and Walter Benjamin at some point); and coming the other way, those escaping Franco. The transnational also find their way here; the pied à terre expats, the hippies, the retirees.

The trail assembles such bodies, in passing, at a table or on a col, spaced out but connected in some way. A sense of stillness descends in rest, defining equanimity in the contemplation of cowbells and the sounds of a river, eating picnics and finally considering descent towards the valleys enfolding more and more people along the way, found tucked into nooks and crannies, creased into picnic spots among the rocks and the trees and the bushes, sitting by the side of the path in the middle of a forest, regarding life, circumnavigating mirror lakes to be disgorged at assorted hostels, gîtes and hotels.

I note the trail makes hard bodies, as I randomly pass the fit and naked, lying stoned on the rocks of a riverbed. I share a bunk with M&M, both in their 70s and both mountain walking for over 30 years with the wiry musculature of the much younger, such as the two Spanish runners I redirect through a forest; straight out of Vogue with nothing more on than black sports bra, shorts and wash board stomachs.

The motley crew gets motlier as we plunge down the final spurs and foothills to the sea, with each new batch requiring analysis. At the intersection of walkers and anoraks, a man at the opposite table is reading a book on European butterflies. I’ve seen some brilliant species today. There are three teenagers with springy ligaments and knee joints, one of whom carries an open umbrella for shade. There are the three young men, and Jackson the dog, sensibly avoiding a career by staying as long as possible in the mountains. A young woman all lean body and tattoos started out with a 22kg pack but is sensibly leaving some with an understanding gîte owner to pick up by car on her way back. There’s a young north American woman who really needed to speak English, had bed bugs, was abandoned by her friend when she realised what the Pyrénées entailed, and who hadn’t booked any accommodation. She was adopted by the Germans. There is Sam, who spends the afternoon drinking beer, then a jug or so of wine, then after dinner liqueur. I find him howling outside my very basic gîte, and being yelled at in turn by the locals, and get him inside where he collapses on a mattress downstairs. He wakes several times during the night to cough up a lung but spryly passes me the next day. Bastard. I analyse myself.

People come and go, and sometimes disappear. The gendamerie pull me over in Siguer and ask if I’ve seen a man gone missing. I had passed one going the other direction but too young I think for the one they’re looking for. My bad French may also have sent them in the wrong direction: le col and Lercoul being very similar when I say them.

I remember the wild things: the black horses of Plateau de Beille that investigate my yurt; fields of yellow and purple wildflowers; marmots setting off their high pitched alarm as wild cats stalk them over moraine. There is also the forest where the wild people live: in a clearing with pirate vans, tipi and horse. Little trails disappear into the shadows and the outlines of off grid shanties.

I remember wild weather. In the afternoon a storm would mostly threaten, with thunder barely raising itself into a clap and either deciding it can’t be arsed, passing over to somewhere else, or half hearted drizzle will accompany sleep until a clear morning repeats itself. But occasionally the clouds gather up their contempt into fat cumulonimbus and bring down hell on a hot earth, grumbling and cracking for hours. Half way to Porteille des Besines (2333m), it begins with a bank of black cloud speeding up the valley, swallowing me in its biblically dark path, and slapping wind and rain into the mountain. It ends after an hour just as abruptly, by passing through a curtain into a sprawling valley below. There must always be a willingness to be immersed in these elements, to be blown over by their great gusts, but just make sure to be swaddled in gortex while its happening.

After the outburst there is refuge: coffee, crepes, nutella, warmth. There is a feeling of gratitude to arrive at shelter, to sit on a wooden deck overlooking a river, as the storm growls its way down the valley, distant thunder echoed, replied to by an outstretched arm of black cloud. Ecogite Orrie de Planés is all brick and children, scoring slightly higher than the gîtes of Rouze and Esbints due to its immaculate sleeping quarters and Pink Floyd playing across the terrace in front of the pool. In the dining hall there are pictures of all the produce providers on the wall; the guardian points out whose veggies and cows we are eating.

Refuge Ras de la Carança is compact, with no showers except the icy blast of the rig next to the creek. The superbly clean composting toilet is 100m away. There are two roaming chickens and a dog that likes stick-throw and my yarn. Quietness descends with cards and scrabble, books and kindles. Py is a patchwork of medieval stonework, and 20th century cement and drains, ancient cemeteries and today’s artisanal beer. At Hotel Glycine, Arles sur Tech, I recharge myself and my gadgets, and plan to lie in on clean sheets, but the church bells peal ALL night, on the hour, outside my window opened to escape the heat on the top floor where the walkers are deposited so our smelly bags and bodies don’t offend anyone (though in fairness the hotel is very welcoming and the food is excellent, served in a courtyard under an ancient mass of ivy).


There is always the uncomfortable; the little scramble to Lescun paling into insignificance compared to Pic du Canigou’s chimnée; and that moment when I proclaim in bad French ‘Pour l’environnment, les Française doit arrêter manger le viande’, just as the rest of the table goes quiet and all French eyes turn to me. But most discomfort can be resolved by perspective. There are things over which I have no control; there are things I can get better at if I choose to practice (please, practice my French!); and the most difficult path does not have to be taken. I do not have to walk up an inclined ice pack and then leap from a hollowed out ledge onto the moraine at its edges. It may just be indicative of trust issues with my boots but I can always choose to scramble around the outside to get to where I need to be. 

The fallibility of using the past for future navigational choices ...

It’s an illusion of age that things from the past are imagined in increased proportions; like going back to your primary school and realising how small it actually is when your memory is of a really big place. On the other hand, when it comes to mountains, it seems to be inverse proportions that remain, as my memories of Pic du Canigou (2,784m) was of a much smaller ascent than it actually turned out to be when facing it again ten years later. Admittedly, on my first encounter I was going down with just a small day bag. My recollections may also have been influenced by the guide books that all described it as an ‘easy’ ascent (although perhaps not in bad weather), and the occasional gîte/refuge guardian who may have climbed it once or twice, reassuring me it was ‘trés facile’.

I was still in two minds when I reached a crossroads and was faced with the choice of the shorter, steeper, Le Chimnée, or the longer official GR10 route. I stood there for 10 minutes debating with myself which way to go as cloud descended and it looked like rain, but just as I was about to continue ahead, Mimi and Michel, two lovely French hikers in their 70s I’d been tagging along the trail from Goulier, caught up with me and turned right. I followed, thinking something like, 'I once got down it, and Mimi and Michel are like ... 70 ... so how hard can going up be'. 

We emerged above the cloud and continued up the valley towards steep, long lacets of moraine and rocky passage. Leaving Mimi and Michel trailing, 1000m dissolved into a couple of hours and I was at the base of 200ft of near vertical rock face.

In hindsight, I should have relied on Google rather than my memory as Le Chimnée is in fact a Grade 2 scramble, defined by the British Mountaineering Council as a point where the line between scrambling and rock climbing becomes ‘blurred, and the use of protection becomes more advisable’. Grade 2 scrambles usually include sections where a rope is a good idea if you’re not feeling too confident. I had no rope, and my confidence had ebbed away with age, particularly following the Italian misadventure. The foul vegetarian dinner that I’d paid a supplement of €3 for the night before had already violently exited and my stomach was gurgling. My period started. I needed to pee. I was carrying a full pack that restricted movement. But faced with no choice, I was going up. 

It helped that it was a weekend and there were numerous agile runners (yes, people run up and over Pic du Canigou for fun), and other hikers clambering around me to provide encouragement. So it was little ledge to little ledge, tiny foothold to tiny handhold, metre by metre apart, steeper and steeper, for I do not know how long (time, like memories of height, was getting out of proportion), until the last three metres of straight up.

Knackered and at the very edge of my comfort zone, I perched on a jutting rock, letting some runners descend, before the last narrow passage to the top where a group of Catalans waited for me to clear the chute and generally cheer me on. One last haul and I was by the cross marking the point that I recalled from years ago, bearing the flags and hopes of Catalans that their country will one day be independent of Spain. 

A definitive edge remained in focus but beyond that clouds rose and fell, along with the chatter of day trippers. The sun and blue sky, the outlines of valleys and crests, appeared and vanished. A step further, the abyss. I could see the sea again knowing it was only five days until I would put my toes in it. 

Slow and steady, first Michel and then Mimi, half my size with twice my pack making me feel like a complete sook, appeared over the threshold and joined me for sandwiches. Quietness descended, with a slightly disturbing thought murmuring in the back reaches of my mind: ‘how the feck did I get down it the first time!'

An Epic Day

I generally estimate that 5-7 hours of walking time is a lovely day entailing a languid pace, a leisurely lunch break, and ample time for photography. But there is always the issue on a GR that gîtes and refuges are inconveniently spaced necessitating the occasional ‘epic’. Epics are okay if they come later on in the itinerary when the legs are broken in and/or the trail is inclined downwards, but on the final stage of the Ariege it was not only coming at me on Day 2, it was also 23km of 2400m ascent and 1280m descent over five cols. Estimated time at normal pace, with stops, in the heat, with possible afternoon thunderstorms: 12 hours.  

A gnawing anxiety got me out of my bed in an old farmhouse in Siguer and on the trail by 6am. The first ascent of 1200m was the worst with cold legs and a 14kg pack including food and water for a long day. Not even the soft alpine grass of the estives could ease the initial fatigue. Losing a clearly defined trail at Pla de Montcamp also slowed things down a bit. My interpretation of the instructions to ‘always follow the spur’ led to being about 90 degrees off course until a swift correction towards Col de Sasc.

The first big knee crushing descent down 600m was through the usual gorse bushes and rocks to reach Cabane Balledreyt. Because of the closing of the Siguer gîte (with the only options being the one farmhouse bed noted above, the very basic free village gîte, or deviation to a village further down the road), and with no supermarché for miles, local walking groups have taken on the task of stocking the cabanes in this section with provisions that hikers can take and then pay back when they get to the next refuge or gîte (or send money online when next on wifi). So it was with joy that, after five hours of walking, I found the cabane well stocked with vanilla and chocolate puddings to go with my boiled eggs and energy bars.

The closing of the Siguer gîte has also affected the number of walkers using this section. Most of the people I’d met in Goulier the day before were taking deviations via car to avoid the distance. But the lack of people over two seasons has meant that the trail is now being reclaimed by nature, disappearing into grass, mud and streams, and the familiar red and white GR signage was wearing away. From Cabane Balledreyt the trail often bore little resemblance to the route description so faith had to be placed in map, compass and a sense of ‘it’s the right general direction’. Tree cover made landmarks harder to see and added to the ever present doubt of ‘when did I last see a ballisage’; a question often spoken out loud to no-one in particular.

After what seemed like an eternity of stumbling downwards through a dappled corridor of rocky trail with a torrent running unseen through chasms first on one side than another, eventually a clearing was found, a forest re-entered, and the path rose again. After 400m of switchbacks, Col de Sirmont held the world for a second in pause position before I was allowed to hurtle once again down into the forest on the other side, along a path still taking shape around the trees and rubble brought down in snow melt and thunderstorms.

Descending further alongside a river, crossing a bridge, passing a helpful trail runner who confirmed directions (one of only two people encountered during the day apart from some bergers in a morning that seemed eons ago), I emerged at a road that helpfully coincided with where I thought I was supposed to be on the map. With 8.5 hours now done, and one final ascent, I stopped to finish off my supplies just as a swarm of biting flies stopped to finish off my legs on the one day I had decided to wear shorts.

I had saved one strategic caffeine gel for this last 800 metres upwards to Plateau de Beille, and also found solace in using my gps to break it into 100m lots, resting on my poles at the end of each section. The road below was the point of rejoining for those who had taken the deviation and I now reconnected with several of the people I had met on the first night in Goulier. We made a caravan over the last hundred metres of ascent, reaching the edge of the plateau just as the rain began to start and stop in short bursts as nature signalled her indecision about just how much more difficult she wanted to make it for us.

The trail soon becomes a piste that made the final kilometre an easy walk to the campsite, where there were dozens of hikers heading back to their cars to drive home after checking out the views, which were superb. There is always a slight disjunction at arriving at a place, a tad tired, dishevelled, smelly and lumpy, to see fashionable day-trippers wandering about in sneakers.

Looking to the north-west I could see most of my route: from Pla de Montcamp, the nearer cols and ridges disappearing into deep valleys. My gps recorded a time of 10.5 hours instead of the 12 predicted, so I may have legged it more than I needed to but I did beat most of the rain. I also noticed my gps categorically telling me my activity had been moderate with no recovery time needed! My legs and upper arms in particular politely declined to pay it any attention and, after eating as much as I possibly could, collapsed into my yurt to recover, dreaming of chocolate pudding and flat, wide open plains. 

The trouble with being la végétarienne ... and other current French troubles.

There is not much that I don't love about France, except foie gras. But it's hard to love a country when they start charging you for being vegetarian. It's not like there's a shortage of cheese in France that they can't just throw a slice on the plate! So as I make preparations for the summer's Pyrenean walking I fully expect, Refuge Marialles, for my €3 extra supplement, some extra quality vegetables.

Je suis aussi un peu annoyed that I had to fly home from Milan yesterday instead of taking my beloved tren de nuit. The rolling SNCF strikes finally caught up with me, and while I admire French militancy in the face of attempts by anyone to curtail the long lunch, I will never forgive them for making me fly into City Airport. This landing involves descending sharply through thick cloud with zero visibility until popping out next to the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, thinking ‘ummm do we have enough clearance over the Excel Centre’, but before being able to worry too much about that getting buffeted by wind shear off the Thames and  bouncing all the way down the runway into a reverse park at the terminal. I could, however, spend hours sitting on the DLR platform watching the prop planes swaying across the tarmac as they come into land, marvelling at how flight really is an amazing feat of engineering, or an unnatural act of magic (and where did I put my anorak).

L'Ariege sauvage

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.