The Sousquéou is a less human excursion, though it has a very fine lake at the head of it. The communication with men is steeper and more difficult than from the district surrounding the Pic du Midi, and, as I know from experience, it is not difficult to lose one’s way. Moreover, the exits from the upper end of this valley are not easy, and it is bounded on either side by the most savage cliffs in the whole chain. Should it be necessary to escape from this ravine by any path but that which leads down on to the high road near Gabas, you have no choice but the high and steep Col d’Arrius, which brings you down into the upper valley of the Gave d’Ossau, or on to the very high and most unpleasant Col de Sobe, which gets you into one of the most difficult parts of the Spanish side near the Peña Forata and so down to the Gallego. Its very remoteness, however, and its partial changes, may attract one kind of walker to the Sousquéou, but if he attempts it, let him go with at least three days’ provisions. There are huts in the lower part of the valley, but there is no very good camping ground near the lake I believe, save on the side of the wood to the north. It is a lonely place, not without horrors, and is perhaps haunted; the shape of the hills around is very terrible.
The Spanish side of all this is more simply described, the new high road runs down 8 or 9 miles to Sallent, which can be turned into 5 or 6 miles by taking the old mule track that cuts off the windings of the graded road. The river Gallego runs below and increases as it goes. To the right or westward of the valley there is nothing in particular to be done, there is but one place where you can conveniently cross over into the valley of the Aragon, which is the Canal Roya I have already described; south of that crossing the flank of the mountain lies bare and open affording neither camping ground nor interest. On the left are the curious serrated precipices of the Peña Forata, where climbing makes but a day’s amusement, but where also there is no opportunity for camping, and once Sallent is reached, though the “valley of Limpid Water” which runs north of it is fine enough, there is little to be done but to go on to Panticosa. There is a path over the very high ridge of the Pic d’Enfer, and there is a main carriage road which goes round the flanks of that mountain.
All this part the valley of the Gallego is bounded by some of the highest and most abrupt peaks in the chain, and (as I shall presently describe) another district, meriting another type of description and travel, lies to the eastward, and constitutes those new fortresses of the hills, the roots of old Sobrarbe, where Christendom first began to hold out against Islam, and whence the men of Aragon could securely push southward when the advance to the Reconquest began.
THE FOUR VALLEYS
III. Sobrarbe
When one says Sobrarbe one means all that eastern and larger part of the original valleys of Aragon which lie between (and do not include) the valley of the Gallego and the valley of the Noguera Ribagorzana, that is, the valley of Broto (which is that of the river Ara), the valley of the river Cinca and the valley of the river Esera; for, with central ramifications, these three make up Sobrarbe.