View from Pic de Sobe
THE Pyrenees are a range comparatively unknown to British climbers, which to those who know these mountains must surely seem a fate they little deserve. It is true that the expert mountaineer, whose only wish is for entirely new or difficult ascents, will have little use for them, but to the climber of more modest ambitions they are a true paradise.
Rock climbs are numerous, and for the most part the rock is easy, though in places somewhat rotten, but on several peaks, notably the Vignemale, Balaitous, the Pic du Midi d’Ossau, and the mountains of the Maladetta group, there are, for those who want them, routes as difficult as many of the first-class Alpine climbs. As none of the Pyrenean peaks rise to a height of much over 11,000 ft., and as in summer the snow-line averages about 10,000, there are few pure snow-climbs to be found, though the vast majority of the ascents combine rock with a certain amount of snow, and sometimes with ice-work as well, though glaciers are far from numerous.
Pyrenean scenery is very beautiful; to some it is even finer than that of the Alps. This is partly because it is more varied, and has several distinctive features. Chief among these are the canon-like valleys of the Spanish Pyrenees and the "cirques." This is the name given to the vast, natural amphitheatres, often two or three miles across, formed at the heads of certain valleys by the mountains rising in precipices several thousands of feet in height. Another probable reason for the beauty of Pyrenean scenery is the vast number of separate peaks, of which, in any given area, there must be far more in the Pyrenees than in the Alps. The lakes, too, though very much smaller, are more numerous and provide great variety of colouring.
The charm of these mountains lies partly in their comparative freedom from the inroads of trippers and sightseers. Apart from one or two important centres like Gavarnie or Luchon, there are no resorts with palatial hotels, cafés, bandstands, and so on, such as exist everywhere in the Alps. Villages, especially on the Spanish side, are few and far between, but in the majority of them cheap and comfortable inns are to be found. In recent years the French Alpine Club and the Catalan Touring Club have erected many very convenient huts for the use of climbers. Two or three of them are very comfortable, providing beds and excellent food, but in most the climber has to cook for himself and sleep on a bed of straw.
Anyone whose climbing ambitions do not aim too high, and who does not mind roughing it to a greater extent than is necessary in the more civilized Alps, could not do better than spend a holiday on foot in the Pyrenees.
On August 8, 1932, I set out from Eaux-Bonnes with a cousin and a friend for a short tour of the Pyrenees. We drove up the Sallent road as far as the Pont de Soques, some two or three miles below the frontier pass, the Col de Portalet.
Leaving Soques at 9 a.m. in glorious weather, we mounted east up the Val d’Arrius, following a path along the bank of . the torrent. An hour later we struck off to our right, and climbing first over grass, then up a long slope of scree and 6nally up a long gully, we reached the summit of the Pic de Sobe, 8,530 ft., shortly before 1 o’clock. There we sat and ate our lunch and gazed on the wonderful scene that was unfolded before us on all sides.
To the west, the Pic du Midi d’Ossau towered, Cervin-like, high above a wilderness of lower peaks and ridges; to the south the Spanish mountains, with their great variety of colouring – grey, black, and red – and their curious formations, unlike anything that is to be found in the Alps, stretched mile after mile, till the farthest ridges seemed to blend with the distant horizon itself. To the east lay the valley of Piedrafita with its lakes, whose waters were a brilliant blue. Beyond, a veritable sea of mountains extended as far as the eye could see, while to the north we caught glimpses of the plain of France.
After an hour’s rest we started to descend to the east, first over grass, then down a chimney, and finally over long slopes of scree into a little basin of snow, from which, after a short ascent, we reached the Col de Sobe, lying between the Pic de Sobe and the Pic d’Arriel. There we rested for a while, but as the weather was now beginning to look threatening, we soon set off for our objective, the Refuge d’Arrémoulit, a hut erected on the shores of the lake of the same name by the French Alpine Club. Descending to the north, we then turned east and reached a point above the Col d’Arrius, where we struck a short-cut leading direct to the Refuge and obviating the necessity of a descent into the valley. This path, made by the French Alpine Club, has been cut out of the mountain-side above a precipice. As we made our way along it, we caught glimpses through the drifting mist of the Lac d’Artouste hundreds of feet below us. Presently we came upon an open plateau, a wilderness of rocks and boulders, sloping gradually down to the Lac d’Arrémoulit, where we reached the Refuge shortly before 7 p.m.
As this hut is typical of the majority of the unguarded Pyrenean climbing huts, a brief description of it may be of interest. Built substantially of stone, it measures roughly 15 ft. by 10 ft. Half the floor space is taken up with the sleeping-quarters, a low platform covered with straw, above which there is a kind of loft at the height of about 6 ft. from the floor. The only articles of furniture are a stone table, two stone benches, a couple of shelves, and a few hooks.
Though mist was swirling about us on all sides, it was a warm evening, and we sat on the bench outside the but to eat our supper. Just before sunset the mist cleared, and a wonderful sight lay before us. At our feet was the lake, its waters black and forbidding, all around it lay a wild and barren wilderness of chaotic rocks and boulders – a typical feature of Pyrenean scenery – then a névé, above which towered the steep rocks of Arriel and Pallas, dark and menacing, their tops alone tinged with red in the glow of sunset.
With the fall of night the air grew cold, and we were glad to seek the comparative warmth of the hut, where we settled down to a card-game. We were soon disturbed, however, by the sound of footsteps outside the hut, and we wondered who this belated traveller could be. It was a young Frenchman from Toulouse, and he told us with evident satisfaction that, with two companions, who were following some way behind him, he had that day made the first descent of the north-west arête of the Balaitous (the Matterhorn of the Pyrenees). By the time his friends had arrived, he had cooked some supper for them: we left them to it and, climbing up into the loft, lay down and were soon asleep.
Next morning we were astir soon after g o’clock: a needlessly early hour in the circumstances, for as my cousin, who had only arrived from home two days before, wanted to rest, he and I had decided to spend the day in the neighbourhood of the hut. It was a beautiful day and we passed the time very successfully doing nothing.
The following morning we set out shortly before 6 a.m. and half an hour later were on the Col d’Arrémoulit, 500 ft. above the Refuge at a height of 8,000 ft. There we had an admirable view of our objective – Frondella, a 10,000 ft. peak to the south of Balaitous – and for a few minutes we studied our proposed line of ascent. After descending a few hundred feet, we traversed the head of a valley; when we had reached the other side, we started to mount by the side of a torrent up steep slopes of scree. Passing a small lake we turned to our right and crossed the torrent just below the main Frondella glacier. We then rounded a spur, and came into a vast basin of rock and glacier, with the rocky west and central peaks of Frondella rising above it on the far side. Here we saw at least thirty chamois, of which several passed within a few yards of us. Mounting steadily up the glacier we presently came to the bergschrund, which we had little difficulty in crossing, and after half an hour’s scramble up easy rocks, or rather over a chaotic mass of boulders, we traversed the central peak and reached the highest point of Frondella, the eastern peak, at 10.30.
The view from the top was glorious, and we spent quite half an hour gazing at the sea of mountains that stretched around us on all sides as far as the eye could see. At our feet lay the beautiful valley of Piedrafita, and beside one of its many lakes we could discern the white roof of the hut at which we hoped to spend the night. By the time we had had some lunch and were ready to start down, it was dose on mid-day. Returning to the central peak, we descended direct to the south, in the opposite direction to that in which we had come up; our route lay down a gully, which opened out into a long and steep snow couloir, down which we had to Hck steps. When we had reached the foot of the couloir, we continued the descent first over long slopes of scree and then down alternate stretches of grass and rock into the valley, arriving at the hut at 3.30. The day had been very warm and a delightfully cool bathe in one of the many lakes of the neighbourhood was both welcome and refreshing.
The following morning we left the hut at 7.30 in glorious weather, and proceeding due east up the valley of Piedrafita we reached the Col de la Fache, 8,983 ft., at 9.30. There we turned south and climbed the northern arête of the Grande Fache, mounting steadily up easy if somewhat rotten rock to reach the summit, 9,863 ft., an hour later. We were again rewarded by a superb view, which there was not a cloud in the sky to obscure. Close at hand, to the south-west, lay the black crest of the Pic d’Enfer, to the north-west rose Frondella and Balaitous, while to the south-east towered the great mass of the Vignemale. Due east, in the far distance, we could distinguish Pic Néthou, the highest point in the Pyrenees, 11,160 ft. We ate our lunch and were ready to start down by mid-day We descended due west down the face, where the rock was easy, though steep and rather rotten. Having descended a thousand feet, we turned south and then, crossing a col, bore to the south-east down a low but precipitous wall of rock into a couloir of snow and scree. Passing under the rocky crête of the Pic Falisse, we came to the Port de Marcadeau, 8,420 ft., one of the principal passes between France and Spain, and much used in former times by smugglers. Passing over the Port, we crossed again into France, and descended the valley of Marcadeau by the mule-path, arriving at 4.30 at the Refuge Wallon, a primitive but comfortable inn, constructed at a height of a little over 6,000 ft. in an ideal spot, some 8 or 10 miles above the village of Cauterets.
Our objective for the following day was the hamlet of Ordesa, in the valley of Arazas, the Spanish National Park. The barometer fell during the night, and when we started off punctually at 6 a.m. the sky was overcast. It grew blacker and blacker away to the west, as we mounted due south up a desolate and rock-strewn valley towards the frontier. As we passed over the Col d’Aratille (8,000 ft.) into Spain, the weather improved, and though it threatened again from time to time, the rain held off all day. We descended into the valley of the Rio Ara, which here, at its upper end, is singularly uninteresting – a mere barren desert, without the desolate grandeur, which no words can describe, of many of the great chaotic, boulder- strewn Pyrenean wastes. After several miles the floor of the valley narrows, and the path winds along the top of a gorge while the mountains rise up steeply on either side. Presently, near the village of Bucharo, it widens again considerably; here the mountain-sides are covered with pine forests, above which rocky precipices tower into the sky. A few miles below Bucharo we turned east into the lateral valley of Arazas, and an hour later, soon after 5 p.m., we reached the hamlet and inn of Ordesa.
No tour of the Pyrenees would be complete without a visit to this valley, one of the most beautiful of the range. In Europe it is unique of its kind, and it can only be compared to the Grand Canon of Colorado. Above the floor of the valley, which in many places forms a narrow gorge with numerous waterfalls, the mountain-sides are covered first with an under- growth of box, then with beech-trees, and higher up still with magnificent pine forests. Above these, rocks, of many colours, ranging between grey and red, rise sheer into the air, forming a series of precipitous and quite unscalable cliffs, each separated by grass terraces of a brilliant green. The formation of the tops of these cliffs is most striking, and often resembles the crenelated battlements of an ancient mountain stronghold.
We were loth to leave such a beautiful spot, so it did not take us long to decide that we would rest upon the following day. The inn was very primitive, but the food was excellent and the beds comfortable. Accordingly we all slept late, and spent a very lazy morning. In the afternoon my cousin and I walked down to Torla, the nearest village of any size, about 6 miles away. It is a very old town, clustering round an ancient church and a still older fortress. The cobbled streets are very narrow, and at the time of our visit were exceedingly dirty; in fact the whole place reeked of poverty and squalor.
From Ordesa it was our intention to make our way over into France again, climbing Mont Perdu en route, but on the first day only to go as far as the Refuge de Gaulis, on the near side of Mont Perdu, and about four hours’ walk from Ordesa. Accordingly, we did not set out the following day till nearly 3 p.m. A thunderstorm had been threatening all day; rain came on soon after we left, and before we had got much more than half-way to the hut, the storm broke in real earnest. Our route lay due east up the valley of Arazas; at the head of the valley the rocks rise precipitously, but in one place, where the holds are firm and plentiful, they are easy enough to scale. Above this a vast and desolate wilderness of rock-strewn grassland rises in numerous terraces to the foot of the great limestone ridge known as the "massif calcaire," of which Mont Perdu is the highest point. When we reached the top of the rocks we could see the Refuge de Gaulis, a small hut built upon one of these terraces. As we mounted towards it the storm increased every minute in intensity, the rain grew heavier and heavier and we were soaked to the skin by the time we reached the hut at exactly 7 p.m. Inside we found three Germans, who were spending the night there on their way down to civilization, after an unsuccessful attempt to climb Mont Perdu – they had been unable to find the way in the mist and clouds that had lain thick upon the mountains all that day. A change of shirt relieved the clamminess of our wet clothes to a certain degree, and then a hearty supper was all that was necessary to make our somewhat dampened spirits rise once more.
Meanwhile the storm had passed over; but by the time we turned in, rain had come on again, and we soon woke up to find it pouring in through the roof on that side of the hut where all our belongings were stored, and before we could rescue them, they were soaked through – clothes, food, ruck-sacks – everything. Fortunately, apart from letting in a few drops, the roof did not leak over the low straw-covered plat- form which served as our bed, and when we had removed all our belongings to a dry corner, we were soon being lulled to sleep again by the loud pattering of a few persistent raindrops falling on the stone floor of the hut.
We looked outside hopefully at intervals of an hour from 4 a.m. onwards, but each time came the report that the rain, though alight, was falling steadily, and that the clouds were very low down. By 8 o’clock we had decided that it would be useless to attempt the ascent of Mont Perdu that day. There was nothing for it but to spend the day in the hut, or else to return to our inn at Ordesa. We fixed at once upon the former alternative, for our time was limited, and we did not wish to waste a day by returning to a place where we had already been. The following day, however, we would have to make a move, whatever the weather, as our provisions would be running short; as it was we had to make two days’ provisions last for three.
Our friends the Germans set out at about 8 o’clock to return to Ordesa; soon afterwards the rain stopped, but the weather still looked so threatening that we did not alter our decision not to climb Mont Perdu that day. However, at 9.30, as the rain still held off, and as we were all thoroughly cold and wet, we decided to do a short and easy climb near the hut. We soon got warm and, thanks to a strong wind, dry as well; and in better spirits we returned to the hut about mid-day to find three young Spaniards, just arrived from Ordesa, with the intention of spending the night there preparatory to climbing Mont Perdu the following day. As we had to economize in food, our lunch was somewhat meagre, and tea was a luxury in which we did not indulge. We passed the afternoon talking, playing various card-games, and listening to the storm raging once again outside. After an early supper we turned in full of hope for the morrow.
Looking out at 4 a.m. we found the rain had ceased, and though the sky was still overcast, the douds were much higher, and altogether the weather looked more promising. So at 5.30 we set out, accompanied by the three Spaniards. Mounting steadily up numerous terraces of grass and rock, we then passed through a large basin of snow, and reached, about 7.30, a small late entirely frozen over, called the "Étang Glacé," situated immediately below the Col du Cylindre, which separates the peak of that name from Mont Perdu. From the lake we mounted south-east up a long and wide snow couloir, which is very steep towards the top. It was full of fresh snow, and as on one side it slopes away at the bottom over a precipice, great care was necessary – incidentally, we were never roped. An hour later we were on the top of Mont Perdu, 11,000 ft. in height, the third highest mountain in the Pyrenees. Though the sky was still overcast, the view was extensive and very fine; no words can describe the singular grandeur of the mountains of the Mont Perdu "massif." But thc wind was too bitterly cold to allow us to remain long on the summit, and by 9.30 we were back at the Étang Glacé, from where, after partaking of a small second breakfast, we climbed a chimney to the Col du Cylindre. Thence, after descending the upper glacier of Mont Perdu in a north-easterly direction, we made our way down a rocky wall of some three or four hundred feet in height, by a series of chimneys on to the lower glacier of Mont Perdu. Traversing this, we reached the Lac Glac6, a lake about a kilometre in length and more than half frozen over. Rounding the lake, we mounted a steep couloir to the Brèche de Tuquerouye, a narrow brèche in the rocky ridge which forms the back of the Cirque d’Estaubé: a cold, exposed, and very draughty spot, one would imagine, yet here the French Alpine Club have constructed a hut. It is, certainly, a good starting-point for certain ascents, and the view, too, more than makes up for the disadvantages of the situation. At one’s feet lies Lac Glacé, with its miniature icebergs and above it towers the superb but desolate "massif" of Mont Perdu, with its snowy crest, its glacier – the most deeply crevassed if not quite the largest in the Pyrenees – and its steep and forbidding rocks.
We had stopped to eat our lunch on the shores of Lac Glacé and by the time we reached the hut it was nearly a p.m., and as the weather was threatening once again, we decided to spend the night there. It was bitterly cold during the night, and the wind swept howling through the brèche. The dawn, however, broke brilliantly fine, and at about 7 a.m. we set out on our last day’s walk, our objective being Gèdre, a village a few miles below Gavarnie. Making our way down a snow couloir on the side of the brèche opposite to that by which we had come up the previous day, we descended into the Cirque d’Estaubé. Then came a long and somewhat dreary valley walk, through scenery for which, though it was fine enough in its way, we had been rather spoiled by all that we had seen during the last few days. Eventually we reached Gèdre at about 2.30, and an hour later caught the post-’bus down to Argelès, and so brought to an end a short but most enjoyable and successful tour.