Price Reductions

Pyrenees Mountain Adventure offers guided summer walking and winter snowshoeing holidays in the Catalan Pyrenees Regional Nature Park. The price for the 7 night Summer Walking holiday, which is based at en eco-friendly trailside lodge and has guided walks on 5 of the 6 full days, has been reduced to £600.

Follow the link for more information about the summer walking holiday run by Pyrenees Mountain Adventure.

Come and explore the sun kissed Eastern Pyrenees with me this summer.

Stunning Scenery

Fun and Friendship

A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.- Paul Dudley White

Spring

While spring is well underway in the valleys, higher up in the mountains, it is just beginning. The average temperature is  warming, the snow cover is receding and nature is beginning to bloom. This was evident on a recent  3 day camping trip in the Capcir region above Les Angles. The weather was mixed.  Warm and sunny at times with cold, grey spells.

Sunrise from near the campsite.

Day 1 was spent exploring  the Têt Valley.

The Têt Valley (taken on Day 2)

 

Above the Têt Valley with the Grand Peric as a back drop (at the end of day 1.)

Day 2 was an attempt to summit Pic Carlit via  a high level ridge route. The summit  was never reached due to snow conditions on the final approach and worsening weather.

Climbing out of the Têt Valley onto the ridge.

High Level Route to Pic Carlit.

 

 

The summit of Pic Carlit from the carlit Plateau.

Spring Pasque Flower Pulsitilla vernalis ( at 2500m.)

Descending from Carlit de Baix. Nameless Lake at 2598m.

Day 3 was a journey amongst the lakes of the Llosa Valley.

Daffodil

 

 

Yellow Whitlow Grass (at 2200m)

Pyrenean Buttercup (Ranunculus pyrenaeus)

The Bear Facts

At the time of year that sees bears waking from the winter hibernation, the annual report by the Bear Team of the Hunting and Wildlife Commission has been published. The report published in early April, states that 19 bears were identified in the Pyrenees in 2010. 17 were to be found on the French side of the chain - the others in Spain. 4 of the 19 are bear cubs.The brown bear can only be found in France in the Pyrenees.

Where the Brown Bear Was Located in the Pyrenees in 2010

The authors of the report state that 19 is a minimum. There are at least 19 bears because other bears present may not have been detected. It is very difficult to accurately determine the number of bears. Actual sightings are rare. Other indications that bears are present are droppings, footprints, tree scratching, animal kills and damage to bee hives.

By 1995 the brown bear population was down to 5. Worried about the complete disappearance of the animal from France, bears were reintroduced from Slovenia in 1996 (2 females) and in 1997 (1 male). Melba, one of the reintroduced bears, was killed in 1997 and Cannelle, the last female brown bear of Pyrenean origin, killed in 2004, both shot by hunters. Despite this, by 2005 the brown bear population had grown to 15. Still not considered viable, numbers were again augmented in 2006 by animals from Slovenia.  4 new females (Palouma, Franska, Hvala and Sarousse) and a male (Balou) were released.  Two of the four introduced females have died. One fell from a cliff in a freak accident, the other (Franska) was killed by a car on a busy stretch of road (the autopsy revealing evidence that she had been shot at.) Other females have given birth to cubs.

The reintroduction of bears has led to a heated debate between the pro (e.g.Pays de l'Ours-Adet; Ferus) and anti bear factions

The pro bear groups are waiting impatiently for more reintroductions to replace the bears that have been killed since 2006.

Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.

In July 2010, the government gave the go ahead for the reintroduction of another female bear to help keep the bear population viable but the Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet has yet to give any further details.

Anti Bear Graffito. If the bears come, the farmers will disapear.

The anti bear groups, made up mainly by shepherds, who fear damage to flocks from attacks by bears, do not want any more bears reintroduced. For them, the use of high mountain pastures during the summer months by their sheep, goats and cattle (transhumance) is incompatible with a growing bear population. According to them,  farming in the mountains is already unattractive financially. Increased loss of stock to bear attacks further reduces profitability and will lead to more farmers leaving the land.

200-300 sheep are killed by bears  each year. The pro bear lobby counters with the fact that wild dogs kill more animals. They also state that farmers are compensated by the government financially for every animal lost in a bear attack. There is also money to pay for farmers to have guard dogs - the formidable Patou mountain dog -  to help protect flocks and herds.

Videos of bears in the Pyrenees from Pays de L'Ours 

See bears and other Pyrenean wildlife (past and present) at Les Angles Wildlife Park. 

Sustainable Development Week

The 2011 Sustainable Development Week is coming to an end in France. Across the country, towns have showcased sustainable development principals and practices.

The most often-quoted definition of sustainable development is that adopted by the Brundtland Commission in 1987: development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Essentially development that is sustainable is an allocation of resources that aims to meet human needs now, while minimising damage to the environment, so that these needs can be met also in the future.

For example, taking too many of a particular fish out of the sea - ‘over fishing’ - will certainly meet consumer needs at present. However, if fish stocks are unable to recover and that particular fish disappears, then in the future, meeting human needs will be compromised. But this would never happen in real life would it?

The Collpase of Atlantic Cod Stocks: East Coast of Newfoundland

The graphic shows the collapse of Atlantic cod stocks off the East Coast of Newfoundland in 1992. From the late 1950s, offshore bottom trawlers began exploiting the deeper part of the stock, leading to a large catch increase BUT a strong decline in the underlying biomass. Internationally agreed quotas in the early 1970s and, following the declaration by Canada of an Exclusive Fishing Zone in 1977, national quota systems ultimately failed to arrest and reverse the decline. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Northern_Cod_Fishery

Sustainable development tries to balance 2 major problems : the Earth has a carrying capacity that is limited and humankind’s wants are unlimited. It is economic growth that is in harmony with ecological support systems.

For Pyrenees Mountain Adventure, Sustainable Development is a core principal. Every time there is a business operating decision to be made, that option which creates the minimum negative impact on the environment is chosen. In every area of the business, always! If the minimum impact option cannot be chosen immediately, it becomes a goal to attain in the future.

How is Pyrenees Mountain Adventure attempting to be as sustainable as possible? The 7 night summer walking holiday that PMA offers uses an eco – friendly trail side lodge with solar panels to generate electricity and heat water. A £100 cash back is given to those clients arriving by train rather than flying. Several walks have been designed to start  and finish at the accommodation to minimise client transfer time. Where a client transfer is required, public transport is preferred. 

General day to day operating decisions where the minimum impact option has been chosen include office hardware, office consumables, business travel, business banking and even the walking kit I use (see Blog article: Top 10 Kit Manufacturers.)

The linear ‘Take – Make – Dispose’ system, which depletes natural resources and generates waste, is deeply flawed and can be productively replaced by a restorative model in which waste does not exist as such but is only food for the next cycle - Ellen MacArthur (round-the-world yachtswoman) http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/

It's not a choice between our environment and our economy; it's a choice between prosperity and decline - President Barack Obama (2009)

Going Underground

The Summer Walking Holiday that Pyrenees Mountain Adventure offers includes a free day when there is no guided walk planned and clients can choose how they wish to spend their time. Something out of the ordinary is a trip underground caving. Inside the Catalan Pyrenees Regional Nature Park there is the Fontrabiouse cave system which can be visited. 

For those who like their cave tours a little more adventurous and athletic, there is the Aguzou Caves just outside the Park boundary.

This is less touristy than Fontrabiouse with the cave system in a much more original state. No artificial lighting has been installed. Numbers are strictly limited to preserve the fragile eco system. Group size is small and the tour takes the form of a 1.5km/1 mile underground hike.

You will need to wear the caving overalls and head torch that are provided and if you choose the full day tour, a climbing harness as well. The tour leader who will look after you is the very knowledgeable and enthusiastic Philippe.
  
The different parts of the cave system are aptly named: Hall of Flowers; Room of Chaos; Room of a Thousand and One Nights; Room of the Queens Crown. 

As well as an impressive display of stalactites and stalagmites,

of which there are some enormous examples,

The Minaret is 6m/25ft high

there are also some smaller, finer treasures.

Calcite Triangle

Bat Skeleton

Coral Aragonite

 

Top 10 Mountain Books

1. Into The Wild. Jon Krakauer (1998)

Chris MacCandless grew up in a wealthy family and was gifted intellectually and athletically. He graduated from Emory University with Honours in 1990 and had plans to attend Harvard Law School. Soon afterwards however, he gave 24,000 dollars  that he had saved to Oxfam and went ‘walkabout’, severing all contact with his family and friends, creating a new life for himself tramping around the US. In April 1992 he hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wild. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a hunter.

‘The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlesssly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun’

2. Touching The Void. Joe Simpson (1988)

 A remarkable survival story. Having made a successful first ascent in Peru with Simon Yates, Joe Simpson falls on the descent and breaks his leg. He eventually ends up falling into a crevasse and Simon believes he is dead. Joe, alone, manages to get out the crevasse and crawl back to camp. 

 ‘Cold had long since won its battle. I accepted that I was to die. Sleep beckoned insistently; a black hole calling me, pain free…..’

3. The Man Who Married a Mountain. Rosemary Bailey (2005)

Rosemary Bailey takes a journey through the Pyrenees. In the process we learn more about this beautiful region and the lives of some of the colourful characters who explored and popularised the area in the nineteenth century. Foremost among them is Count Henry Russel who had an astonishing relationsip with the highest peak on the French side of the chain – the Vignemale.

 ‘Of all those that sought the Sublime and the Beautiful in the Pyrenees, it was Henry Russel who found it.’

4. Climbing High. Lene Gammelgard. (1999)

A woman's account of surviving the killer storm that swept across Everest without warning in the spring of 1996 from someone who was there. Gammelgard made the summit on May 10 but 12 of those on Everest that day would later die – the worst single season death toll on the peak. Many were part of commercial expeditions who had paid large sums of money to be guided to the highest point on earth.

 ‘What I want to share is not the death and tragedy of climbing, but the majestic beauty of the high mountains and the incredible experience of pursuing the challenge of Everest....... I want to share my love for the mountains, for the wilderness where I feel at home.’

5. The Wild Places. Robert Macfarlane (2007)

Robert Macfarlane sets out on a journey around the British Isles, experiencing many different landscapes (e.g. moor, forest, mountaintop,valley, ridge, beach, marsh) in many different ways (e.g. tree climbing, lake swimming, night walking, sleeping on a frozen lake) to discover if any real wild places remain.

 ‘The losses to the wild places of Britain and Ireland were unignorable, and the threats they faced – pollution, climate change – appeared greater in number and vigour than ever before. But I knew that wildness had not wholly vanished.’

6. Mountains of the Mind : A History of a Fascination. Robert Macfarlane (2003)

Over the last 300 years or so there has been a reversal in attitude towards mountains. No longer are they feared, cursed and avoided at all costs. Mountains now attract us with their beauty and the opportunity they offer to enable us to reconnect with nature. For many, mountains have become a neccessity. Macfarlane looks back at the changed relationship between man and mountains.

7. Son of the Wilderness. Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1945)

This is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Muir. After a harsh childhood in Scotland he become a leading, influential crusader for conservation in the US – a wilderness prophet.

 ‘John Muir came down from the mountains that fall of 1875 with the firm resolve to make all the wilderness better known and loved, that it might be cherished by future generations’

8. Backpacks, Boots and Baguettes. Simon Calder and Mick Webb 2004

A humerous, informative account of completing the GR10 Traverse across the Pyrenees from Atalantic to Mediterranean.

 ‘..if there is one thing more exciting than finding your path it has to be the joy of making your own one’

9. I Bought A Mountain. Thomas Firbank (1940)

A 21 year old Canadian, fresh from two years working in a factory, who cannot speak Welsh and has never farmed, decides to buy a Welsh hill farm in the shadow of Snowdon. Against all odds, Thomas Firbank and his wife Esme, succeed. This is their story.

 ‘The rain was a balm, the wind a caress, the wild Welsh mountains a purge. I think I had decided to buy (the farm) even before the bonnet (of the car) was blown away’

10. The Spirit of Adventure. Colin Mortlock (2009)

Colin Mortlock has already written two books (‘The Adventure Alternative 1984 and ‘Beyond Adventure 2001) reflecting on what it means to be a good person and how adventurous, solo journeys in wild places can help us to discover ourselves and develop the necessary virtues to be better members of the human race.  This third book was started soon after his beloved wife Annette died and finds Colin Mortlock, in old age, again reflecting back on his life journey,  trying to pass on the wisdom he has gained from his experiences teaching outdoor education and adventuring. A thought provoking, inspiring work, as were his other books.

‘Wild nature holds crucial answers as to how to live our lives’

Frozen Lakes and Conifer Forests

On a recent 2 days spent walking near Lake Bouillouse, the sunny weather for which the Eastern Pyrenees is famous was nowhere to be seen. Snow flurries, gusting winds and biting cold only relented by the afternoon of the second day.

One of the Many Frozen Lakes in the Area

Still, the weather conditions gave the area an Arctic look at times which I enjoyed.

Conditions Gave the Area  an Arctic Feel

I also enjoyed the wind sculpted snow.

Sastrugi - wind sculpted snow

Unfortunately, there were no views from the summit of Tossal Colomer that had been cleared of most of its snow by the wind. I was not able to look across to the Pic Carlit, the highest peak in the Catalan Pyrenees Regional Nature Park and first climbed by the famous Count Henry Russel. Neither was I able to look down on the myriad of lakes for which this particular area of the Park is famous.

Happily, the weather brightened for the descent and I was able to see more of the delightful valley along which I made my approach.

Looking Back at the Final Col Before the Summit (Hidden on the Right)

With the weather hot and sunny for the return to the Bouillouse Dam, I was able to look back at my  snow shoe tracks in the fresh powder snow and in the distance Tossal Colomer

Fresh Tracks and in the Distance Tossal Colomer