Something Old, Something New and Something Unexpected

The French have an expression 'Que la montagne est belle!' - aren't the mountains beautiful and a recent weekend wild camping demonstrated that perfectly. Some of the beauty was old, in the sense that I already knew about it, some of the beauty was new in that I discovered it during the weekend and some was unexpected........

The 'old beauty' was the Orlu Nature Reserve above the Orlu Valley in the Ariege. I had completed the walk up to the Naguille resevoir and dam before on one of my earliest visits to the Pyrenees back in the early 1990's. Then I was on holiday but now nearly 20 years later I work in the area showing clients the beauty the region has to offer with the the holidays that Pyrenees Mountain Adventure runs.

It was also the scenery that was as spectacular as ever.

The view from Col d'en Beys

It was how peaceful and uncrowded the area remained.

It was the still impressive display of wild flowers - Trumpet Gentian, Pyrenean Squill, Pyrenean Buttercup, Pyrenean Pheasant-Eye, Daffodil, and Marsh Marigold

Moss Campion Silene acaulis

It was the wildlife encounters - a Jay in the beach forest at the start of the walk, a kestrel flying in the valley level with me while at the Col d'en Beys, a ptarmigan not having completely lost its white winter plumage being disturbed from its hiding place among the juniper bushes, an eagle that came to investigate who I was and what I was doing at a col on day 2, a group of isard demonstrating their agility and power while climbing steep ground as I sat and watched in the fading light and a cheeky marmot.

Marmot

 The 'new beauty' and there is always new beauty to discover, was the Pinet Valley. Little known and rarely visited and better for it - I had it to myself.

At the head of the valley were Pic de Pinet and Pic d'Ouxis and between them a ridge that provided some entertaining scrambling. The clouds began to roll in as I started the ascent of Pic d'Ouxis (2510m) after lunch at the col and by the time I had completed the ridge and descended from Pic de Pinet (2420m), the first drops of rain began to fall.

The 'unexpected beauty' was being able to help two walkers who approached me at my wild camp site near the Peyrisses lakes (2227m) as I ate my evening meal. They wanted to know where the refuge was. The mist that had ghosted in had reduced visibility greatly. There was no refuge here. The Refuge d'en Beys was in the next valley! They had a map but were novices on their first mountain adventure and didn't really know how to use it. I ended up taking them to the correct col and part way down the correct descent path leaving them to continue on their own after the last snow patch had been crossed.

It seemed the correct thing to do and they were generous with their thanks. If I had been in their position I would have wanted someone to do exactly the same for me. It was waiting back at the col to check they made the valley below that I was rewarded with the encounter with the kestrel and the herd of isard. If I had not offered to help, my own weekend mountain adventure would have been much less rich in so many ways.........

Top 10 Pyrenees Guide Books

There are a range of Pyrenees guide books on offer that I have used, and continue to use, to put together interesting walks and treks for Pyrenees Mountain Adventure that show off the best the Pyrenees has to offer . Here are my Top 10.  

 
Best For General Information: Rough Guide to the Pyrenees (6th Ed. 2007)

Covering the whole chain in detail and packed full of information. I am still using my 1995 edition. Essential.

"These mountains challenge and invite rather than intimidate."

2. Best For Historical Comparisons: A Guide to the Pyrenees. Charles Packe (1862)

'Especially intended for the use of mountaineers.' The first guide to the Pyrenees in English. Still in print and still of use in terms of ideas about where to walk. Very interesting to read to see what has changed since 1862 and what has stayed the same. The wolf and ibex that Packe mentions are extinct now in the Pyrenees and the shelter on the summit of Pic Canigou has also gone but the Eyne Valley has not lost its world class reputation as a site for alpine flowers.

"Inferior, indeed, to the Alps in height and expanse of barren glacier, but far more picturesque in form as well as colour"

3. Best For the Backpack: Walks and Climbs in the Pyrenees. Kev Reynolds (2008)

Covers the High Pyrenees from Pic D'Anie to Pic Carlit - ignoring the parts of the chain closest to the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Includes 170 routes which are mostly day walks but there are several  2 and 3 day treks. Also includes routes along a section of a section of  the Haute Randonnée Pyrénéan (HRP) of 24 days broken down into 3 stages. There are no walking maps.

 

"For the walker and trekker, the range has just about everything."

Concise. Pocket sIzed. Cover photo is 2001 edition

4. Best For History: 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 (a friend of Charles Packe) 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.’

 

5. Best For Humour: 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. A good introduction to the Pyrenees.

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

6. Best For Walking: The Pyrenees. Kev Reynolds. (2004)

A more user friendly version of Walks and Climbs with more information, better maps and more photos.

'A magical range of mountains'

'The finest trekking in all Europe is to be found in the Pyrenees'

7. Best For The GR10: Trekking in the Pyrenees. Douglas Streatfeld-James. (1998)

A guide that covers the whole GR10 - one of several long distance paths that traverse the  Pyrenean Chain. 80 detailed maps showing timings, accommodation and points of interest. Good language section and includes some historical and geographical background as well as information on flora and fauna.

'This is an area of awe-inspiring beauty'

8. Best For The Eastern Pyrenees: Parc Naturel Régional des Pyrenees Catalanes

A guide book (in French) that concentrates just on the Catalan Pyrenees Regional Nature Park found in the Eastern Pyrenees closest to the Mediterranean - the sunniest part of the chain. 26 day walks and 2 weekend treks. Route description plus 1:25000 IGN map extract. Includes much useful general information on the geology, history, fauna and architecture of the area.

'A paradise for the walker.....there is something for all tastes and all levels'

9. Best For the GR11: Through The Spanish Pyrenees GR11. Paul Lucia. (2010 4th Ed.)

The GR11 or 'La Senda' (The Track) is the Sapnish equivalent of the GR10 and this is the only English language guide to the route. A coast to coast traverse of the Pyrenees on the Spanish side of the chain.

10. Best For the HRP: The Pyrenean Haute Route. Tom Joosten. (Reprinted 2012)

Unlike the GR10 and GR11 the Haute Route crosses the French-Spanish border many times, exploring both sides of the mountain range and staying as close as possible to the main ridge of the Pyrenees. 

The classic text is by George Veron (Pyrenees High Level Route 1991) the Frenchman who laid the foundations for the hardest of the coast to coast traverse routes but it is out of print. 

Joosten's Cicerone guide is argueably as good. He walked every stage of the Haute Route more than once and all the stages in the high mountains at least three times.

800km broken down into 42 stages including 500 GPS Waypoints to help with navigation..

Want help planning your perfect Pyrenees mountain adventure? Have a look at the Pyrenees Mountain Adventure website: www.pyreneesmountainadventure.com 

The Pyrenees Mountain Adventure team look forward to hearing from you soon.

Top 10 Wilderness Films

Wilderness Matters! Here is my top 10 of wilderness films. Films that show the beauty of  wild places -  whether mountains , desert or the ocean but also encourage reflection on what they have to offer humankind and why they should be protected.

1. Sweetgrass.

Year: 2009. Director: Lucien Castaing-Taylor.

This film follows a group of shepherds/modern day cowboys driving a herd of sheep 300 km to summer pastures in the Beartooth Mountains of Montanna for the last time. The area is beautiful but harsh and the flock must be protected from  a variety of natural dangers (storms, wolves and bears). Put together from material shot over 3 summers, the film has no narration and no soundtrack.

http://sweetgrassthemovie.com/

2. Into The Wild
Year: 2007. Director: Sean Penn. 
Based on the life of Chris MacCandless. 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. Five months later his decomposed body was found by a hunter. A lost man in a lost world searching for answers.

3. Grizzly Man

Year: 2005. Director: Werner Herzog.

A documentary  about grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard. They were both  killed in October of 2003 by a grizzly bear. Timothy had lived among the grizzlies in Alaska for 13 summers.
" Behind me is Ed and Rowdy, members of an up-and-coming sub-adult gang. They're challenging everything, including me. Goes with the territory. If I show weakness, if I retreat, I may be hurt, I may be killed."

http://www.grizzlyman.com/timothy-treadwell/

4. The Last Trapper

Year: 2004. Director: Nicolas Vanier.

The film is set in the Yukon in Alaska and is based on the life of a real fur trapper called Norman Winter who plays himself.  Winter, 50, is a modern-day Jeremiah Johnson living off what he hunts and fishes, making most of what he needs with his own two hands, including his log cabin. Not a true documentary - the scenes acted out are based on events in Winter's own life.

5. Alone in the Wilderness.
Year: 2003. Director: Bob Swerer.
This is the first in a series of films that shows how Dick Proenneke lived his dream of being self sufficient in the Alaska Wilderness.
"Thousands have had such dreams, but Dick Proenneke lived them. He found a place, built a cabin, and stayed to become part of the country."  Proenneke filmed his own adventures, and Swerer later turned the footage into a film.
http://aloneinthewilderness.com/

6. Dances With Wolves
Year: 1990. Director: Kevin Costner. An 'eco -western' directed and starring Kevin Costner. The fictional story follows John Dunbar an officer in the US Cavalry who has the choice of any posting he wants and chooses the 'Far West' frontier, because he wants " to see it before it's gone." Dunbar meets and becomes friends with a Sioux tribe of Native North Americans. He discovers their culture and the respect they have for the land.

7. The Big Blue

Year: 1988. Director: Luc Besson.

The fictional story follows the path of two 'free divers' who first meet as children. Both have a deep bond with the ocean.

8. Never Cry Wolf

Year: 1983. Director: Carroll Ballard. 

This film dramatizes the true story of Farley Mowat, a government researcher sent to the Canadian tundra area to collect data about how the wolf population was allegedly harming the caribou herds. While studying the wolves and  learning more about them and the harsh environment they live in, Mowat has his old beliefs and prejudices about wolves and the threat they pose challenged.

9. Jeremiah Johnson
Year: 1972. Director: Sydney Pollack.  
A war weary veteran of the conflict in Mexico (1846-48), Jeremiah Johnson (played by Robert Redford) seeks to escape from his existing life and find peace and refuge on the frontier of the Western U.S. He becomes a mountain man supporting himself in the Rocky Mountains as a trapper.

10. Walkabout
Year: 1971. Director: Nicolas Roeg. 
Two upper class English children find themselves stranded in the 'alien' Australian outback. They survive with the help of an aboriginal/Native Australian boy on walkabout and finally manage to return to 'civilisation'.

From the Ariege to the Big Apple

With the arrival of Spring and the rise in temperature, the brown bear population in the Pyrenees mountains is waking up after the winter hibernation.

The film shows the male adult brown bear Balou soon after leaving his hibernation site (16 March) The bear is attracted to this tree because a mixture of cows blood and mashed up sardines has been spread on it.  It is important to attract the bear to this point because nearby is an automatic camera. The captured image is one way to keep a track of the bear population. Another is by using radio collars like the one Balou can be seen wearing. The signal emitted by the collar helps to locate the bear and track its movements.

About 20 live in the Pyrenees at present. This number is growing due in part to the programme of introducing bears from Slovenia to boost the Pyrenean population and add new stock but the growth in numbers is slow and 20 is still not  a viable population.

At the end of the XIX century bear numbers were much larger particularly in the Couserans region of the Eastern Pyrenees. Life was very hard for the inhabitants and some had the idea to earn their living by becoming bear tamers.

Bear cubs, often left after the mother had been shot, would be trained to do tricks and would be displayed from town to town. The public would pay to see the bear perform. The men were called "montreur d'ours" — literally, "displayer of bears".

In villages like Ercé, Ustou, Aulus in the Couseran area of the Ariege, bear taming became something of an industry. Ercé even had a 'bear training school'

Some Ariege bear tamers travelled far from France including to America realising a better living could be made in the U.S. Some made money travelling with their bears dispalying them from town to town while others became animal trainers in the circus. Others changed their occupations completely and went to work in the mines or in hotels and restaurants, notably in New York.

In New York, it is in Central Park that the immigrants from the Couseran often meet near a rock formation called Ercé Rock, to exchange news from the Pyrenees or prepare for a new arrival from the the 'old' country.

It's Official.....

It's official, the Canigou Massif in the Eastern Pyrenees has just achieved the label 'French Grand Site'.

Pic Canigou

It is the first site designated as such in the Pyrenees. The site includes Pic Canigou the highest point in the site at 2 874m/9 133 feet and the sacred mountain of the Catalans. It also includes the St Martin de Canigou Abbey, the Cortalets and Marialles Refuges and 3 nature reserves.

The Canigou Massif is rich in wildlife like these Isard.

To earn the French Grand Site label from the Ministry for Ecology and Sustainable Development, the site must have implemented a programme of conservation, management and development that follows sustainable development principles.

The Grand Site de France logo.

Pyrenees Mountain Adventure plans to add a 7 night walking holiday in the Canigou Massif, including an ascent of Pic canigou, to its existing range of summer walking holidays for autumn 2012. Have a look at the PMA website for more information.

Chris McCandless

Chris McCandless (February 12, 1968 – August 1992)

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. Five months later his decomposed body was found by a hunter.

A self-portrait of Christopher McCandless outside the 'magic bus' on the Stampede Trail which was found undeveloped in his camera after his death.

‘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’

The story was told by Jon  Krakauer  in the 1998 book 'Into The Wild'

The story was also told in the 2007 film 'Into The Wild' directed by Sean Penn with music by Eddy Vedder and starring Emile Hirsch.

Here is a Charlie Rose interview about 'Into The Wild' with director Sean Penn and musician Eddie Vedder, who composed the soundtrack to the film.  (The picture is of Jon Krakauer who also appears)

 A documentary 'Call of the Wild' by Ron Lamoth takes a less romantic, more balanced look at Chris, his journeying and death. Ron travels to the places Chris visited and talks to the people he knew and who crossed his path at different stages in his life.

The parents of Chris have set up a Memorial Foundation  and a book of his photos and writings (logs, letters, postcards and notes in books) 'Back to the Wild' is available

 

There Is No Such Thing As Bad Weather

John Ruskin once said “Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”

The first time I visited the summit of the Pic de la Coum D'Or in winter it was grey and overcast. The peaks in Andorra were covered in cloud and the route I had taken partly obscured. I was not even able to make out the Lanoux resevoir at the foot of the summit - the largest expanse of water in the French Pyrenees. The time on the summit however was almost windless and remarkably peaceful.

Summit view from Pic de la Coum d'Or looking towards Andorra

 On a recent revisit this winter, I had  blue sky and sunshine and the views  were clear.

My snowshoe tracks towards the Pic de la Coum d'Or

The partially frozen Lanoux resevoir and the dam were visible this time and in the distance Pic Carlit - the highest peak in the Catalan Pyrenees Regional Nature Park. This is a favourite mountain area of mine and the area where I prefer to lead  Pyrenees Mountain Adventure walks and treks.

Partially frozen Lanoux Resevoir and in the distance Pic Carlit

However the  wind was much stronger and the summit less of a pleasant experience, the windchill  hastening my descent.

The cold made me think of the herd of 8 or so Isard I had seen on my ascent. I had chosen to approach the peak not by the normal valley route, which I had done before, but via the ridge above the valley. This required more effort but I was able to escape from the normal approach and well trodden path and into a wilder, less visited area and that is where the wildlife can be found. 

The Isard were seen from this spot but out of shot to the right and below me.

It is always exhilarating to see the larger Pyrenean wildlife up close(r) but in winter especially, there is the always the concern that in disturbing the animals I am putting them at risk. Food is much scarcer in the winter and the animals rely on fat reserves built up over the summer to survive. Disturbing them and making them flee, while impressive to watch in terms of their speed, agility, strength and stamina, expends valuable energy which they do not have a great surplus of and therefore makes them more vulnerable to the harshness of the winter.