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kokoryko Says: Another little city at the feet of the mountains offers good starting points to many tours in the mountains: Luz St Sauveur.Luz is a small village, with no particular charm, big grey houses, a number of hotels, souvenir shops. . . and excellent butcher shops where you can...
kokoryko Says: Cauterets is a very good starting point for hikes in the mountains, but also, if you do not like to walk a lot, or have small children with you, there are possibilities to go quite high in the mountains and visit Lac de Gaube (Gaube Lake) or the Cirque du Lys.You can drive...
kokoryko Says: The Pyrénées have a quite long history and telling this in a short tip is not exactly serious and not the purpose of VT-pages! But, when we walk in nature, we love to look at the landscapes, as well as at flowers, trees, big or little animals, lakes. . . . . ; we make sort...
Be patient with the other users of the trails!
kokoryko Says: The hiking trails are sometimes very crowded, and traffic jams are not unusual, specially during bad weather. I met one day these trail-users on my way back from Pombie hut and Col de Suzon; they did not dare to cross the little river which had grown with the rain and were...
kokoryko Says: Cheese in the things do do? Yes, of course, I mean “eat cheese”, the wonderful Pyrénéan sheep cheese! I use a computer , I am happy with and do not know how it works, so am I with the cheese, I know very few about cheese making, but appreciate it a lot!The western Pyrénéan...
A village tour in Pays Toy(8).
kokoryko Says: We have seen lots of little churches in our village tour; a last one? OK! We are now in Luz St Sauveur; I adapt Victor Hugo: “Charming old city (. . .) ideally located in a deep triangular valley. When the smugglers, coming from Aragon, catching sight of the bright light...
A village tour in Pays Toy(7).
kokoryko Says: A last little hike up, along the road and we enter Sazos, a rather “big” village, built on the slope of the mountain. On the main picture is the St Julien church, of the 17th century, closed when I visited with a camera, which is –unusual- not in the centre of the village,...
A village tour in Pays Toy(6).
kokoryko Says: We follow now the road, look from far at the village of Vizos, on the mountain slope, cross the Gave on a bridge and follow the left bank upstream and arrive at Sassis and discover. . . well, another Roman church! It is a 12th century building where a few of the modillions...
A village tour in Pays Toy(5).
kokoryko Says: Here again, in Esquièze, a massive tower, a recent church (17th century), but the construction style is traditional, like the very old roman churches. There is a small cemetery you can enter through the small arch, and from there, you have a great view to the snow covered...
kokoryko Says: Getting around in Parc National des Pyrénées? By car you will go around, literally, as you cannot drive inside, except on the two roads going to Spain.So, what is needed to get around here is:Good walking shoesMaps, compass, altimeter and that sort of things if you intend to...
Many possibilities to get there
kokoryko Says: There are many options to arrive to the Pyrénées!By plane you can arrive to Biarritz, Pau, Tarbes or Toulouse; if you arrive from overseas you may go to Paris (Roissy-CDG or Orly) then take a connecting flight;For Biarritz, if you also want to visit Basque land, there are a...
I know the guy who knows the guy who knows the guy
kokoryko Says: Yes! I know him, the guy who knows the guy who. . . . (20 times. . . ) who knows the guy who has seen the bear!If you have the very improbable luck to spot a bear in the Western Pyrénées (and the more improbable luck to make a picture), tell me! Tell the local and...
kokoryko Says: Sheep herding is a very important local economic activity in the Pyrénées, and you may meet a lot in the National Park from May to October, grazing on the alpine meadows. All the little white dots on picture 1 are sheep enjoying the new spring grass in the small Magnabait...
Helpfulness
Writing about dangers in “my” mountains? I never felt in danger here, never was scared, and just was careful in certain circumstances.
I do not feel comfortable writing about dangers in the mountains, and there are, of course, and every year there are accidents in the Pyrenees; I will not write here for the climbers or long range trekkers, they are supposed to know what they are doing and are aware of what can happen.
For the newcomers, the most important danger is related to weather conditions: weather forecasts are usually not reliable in high mountain areas, and here, on this range, parallel to the main west winds coming from the Ocean, and being the first topographic feature the humid west winds encounter, you may have rain or even thunderstorms or hail in Cauterets and bright sunshine at Gavarnie, 25 km away; and 3 hours later, the conditions are inverted. . . . Be prepared to walk in the clouds, with little visibility; that can last for 2-3 hours sometimes (and even sometimes the whole day!) When you hike on high trails, take along rain gear and warm clothes, you never know. . . . even if the sun shines brightly when you start. There can be very heavy rains which even get the creeks flowing over the roads below the rail heads (picture 2).
Some parts of trails are a bit. . . aerial, so beware of vertigo, I have seen people panicking, it is not pleasant for themselves and their fellow hikers.
Many trails are quite rocky-blocky, only bare loose boulders and blocks; don’t try to run or jump (but I gave up explaining to my boys. . . ), it is easy to fall or to sprain your ankle; better walk slowly and look where you put your feet.
There is no reported danger with wildlife, there are very few snakes, and above 2000 m they begin to feel cold. . . . .
On picture 1, these statices are on a ridge vertically overlooking a small glacier, 200 below, be sure you have no vertigo if you want to have a close look.
The fog is unpleasant, you hardly see where you go. . . . Picture 3 has been taken on a road: Col du Tourmalet on a very misty day; in certain areas, fog can be a danger, not only of getting lost. The isard jumps easily on this stony-rocky trail (picture4), but not the trekker with his backpack. . . . . And the clouds form rather quickly, and you do not know if you will be trapped soon (picture5).
Written Aug 29, 2008
Helpfulness
Luggage and bags:
In other tips I wrote about rain, sun, fog, rocks. . . . Well, what to take with you for a hike in the National Park? A good picnic, of course, some drinks if you do not like the water of the creeks (But there is absolutely no danger drinking it!)and:
* Sun cream, as at high elevation the sun rays contain still much more UVs than at sea level.
* Good hiking shoes; do not try to walk with other shoes than hiking boots, even not sports shoes, your ankles are precious.
Clothing/Shoes/Weather Gear:
* Warm clothes, and rain gear, good wind cutters.
* Guides and maps (tourist offices, book shops) if you like to know where you are and where you are going, and. . . have arguments with your co-hikers.
* A camera, of course; if you have a SLR camera, it is worth to have a UV filter on the lens, it enhances contrast and gives better colours; I used sometimes my sunglasses in front of a compact camera; results are. . . interesting!
And if you are going on long high trails, and glaciers, you know what you do; don’t forget ice axe, crampons, rope if you are a team, etc. . .
Written Aug 29, 2008
kokoryko Says: Well, hate is a bit a big word for what I feel when I see 4WD cars in “my” mountains, but I really do not understand the pleasure and fun one can have when sitting in a noisy, stinking metal box, destroying the soils, running over flowers and little animals, destroying the...
kokoryko Says: If you are a little bit masochist (just a little bit like I am), there are wonderful bike tours to make in the Pyérénées, with the climbs of world famous passes (famous because of the Tour de France!), the incredible downhill races on the “difficult” roads where you overtake...
A rafting day along Gave d'Ossau
kokoryko Says: I am not (really not!) an addict of the so-called “extreme sports”, which, I feel, are very often only “assisted sensation providing” activities, but I have to admit that when I discovered rafting I liked it; but may be it was only because I had a nice day with colleagues...
What you will discover, and how
kokoryko Says: What has been written in the previous tip is to say that the national park is to be visited with the respect it deserves, on feet; there are wonderful hikes to a lake, a waterfall or a low summit for a few hours, along which small kids may discover the marmots, the isards,...
kokoryko Says: The central area of the Parc National des Pyrénées Occidentales is located on the highest areas of the Western French Pyrénées, (map: picture 2) in the so-called axial zone of the mountain chain. The elevations vary from about 900m to 3298m (Pic du Vignemale), which is not a...
Somewhere between heaven and earth
The Pyrénées are not appearing as a separate destination in VT, and so, this page appears in Parc National des Pyrénées occidentales, but it is about the Western Pyrénées in general, not only the...
Build your own Parc National des Pyrénées Occidentales page
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