V
TRAVEL ON FOOT IN THE PYRENEES
The road system of the Pyrenees and the opportunities it affords for motoring, bicycling, and driving are but a small part of what most English readers desire to know about travel in these mountains. For most men the pleasure of such travel is to be found in wandering upon foot from place to place, in learning a district by slow daily experience, in camping, and in the chance adventures that attach to this kind of life, and also in climbing. Of climbing I can write nothing; it is an amusement or a gamble that I have had no opportunity of enjoying. Those who think of mountains in this way can learn all they need in Mr. Spender’s book, “The High Pyrenees.” They can get more detailed knowledge from Packe—if a copy of the book is still to be bought—and I am told by those who understand such matters that the rock climbing of this range is among the best and the most varied in Europe. In the matter of travel upon foot other than climbing, I have some considerable experience, and this is the sort of travel which I shall presuppose when I come to speak of the various districts into which travel in the Pyrenees may be divided.
There are two ways in which travel on foot in these hills can be enjoyed; the first is by laying down some long line of travel—as over the Somport, across from the Aragon to the Gallego, and so through Sobrarbe to Venasque—the second is by fixing upon a comparatively small district in which one can slowly shift one’s camp from one day to another. In either case, the aspect of travel on foot is much the same, and so are its difficulties and its necessities.
I have heard it discussed whether a man should travel with a mule in these hills. The practice has in its favour the fact that the mountaineers, whenever they have a pack to carry and some distance to go, travel with a beast of burden. The mule goes wherever a man can go, short of sheer climbing, and it will carry provisions for some days. The expense is not heavy; a mule is saleable anywhere in these mountains; one can buy it at the beginning of a holiday and sell it at the end of one, never at a great loss, sometimes at a profit. Nevertheless, upon the whole, the mule is to be avoided. You are somewhat tied by the beast. He is not always reasonable, and feeding him, though it will be easy two days out of three, is sometimes difficult, for while he will carry many days of your provisions, he can carry but few rations of his own. With a mule one always finds one’s self trying to make an inn, and that preoccupation is a great drawback to travel in the mountains. Moreover, the keep of a mule, at a Spanish inn especially, is expensive. It is a better plan to hire a mule occasionally, as one needs repose, or in order to carry any considerable weight for a short distance over some high pass.
I presuppose therefore a traveller upon foot carrying his own pack, and I will now lay down certain rules which my experience has taught me to apply to this kind of excursion.
I shall speak later of what sort of kit one should carry, what amount of provision, etc.; and I shall also speak later of the nature of camping in these hills; but these two main things do not cover the whole business, and the more you know of the Pyrenees, the more you will find them enemies unless you observe the laws which they teach you in the matter of exploring them.
Now, the first and the most essential of these laws to regulate your travel is to make certain of no one distance in any one time. Do not say to yourself “I will leave Cabanes” (for instance) “and will sleep the night in Serrat.” Such plans are too easily made at home or on the plains. One measures the distance upon the map, and the thing seems simple enough. One may be lured into security by starting in fine weather or over easy ground, but unless you have been over the place before, never make a plan of this kind, and even if you know the territory, beware of the false confidence which comes so easily in the plains, when one has forgotten the terrors of the high places.
Here are two examples within my own experience to show what dangers attend this sort of confidence, the first taken from the Aston, the next from that very easy place, the Canal Roya; and remember that nothing I am saying has to do with the fantastic exercise of climbing, but only with straightforward walking and scrambling.