The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

For a man travelling on foot in the Pyrenees the chief value of Luchon lies in its being the only rail-head which lies close against the highest peaks. Here one can have one’s letters sent and one’s luggage, and to this place one can always return from the wildest parts of the Sobrarbe, or of Catalonia, which lie on either hand just to the south-west and south-east. It is also the best place in the whole range in which to change English money.

The valley, though it has great historical interest (and everybody who has the leisure should see St. Bertrand at the mouth of it), has, like those valleys to the west of it which have just been mentioned, little to arrest a man on foot, except in its last high reach. The ridge which runs north for 12 miles beyond Luchon and lies west of the railway, is high and densely wooded; but it is not good camping ground and it leads nowhere, while that to the east, less steep and not quite so densely wooded, has but one large field for camping, the forest of Marignac; and even in Marignac there is nothing but the wood to attract one. Once through the wood one is back again upon a high road and the valley of the Garonne.

Above Luchon, however, there spread out a number of valleys which are worthy of exploration in themselves, and one of which is the main way over into Spain. For this last we must continue the high road (which follows up the Pique, the river that waters all the Luchon district) until one comes, at the end of the causeway, to the hotel that was formerly a hospice, and is still called by that name. From this point a steep path takes one 3000 feet right up to the main ridge and to the little notch in the rock which is called the Port de Venasque. The path, though not so clear, is equally easy on the other side, bringing one down into the valley of the Esera and to the town of Venasque in the Sobrarbe. The whole way from Luchon to Venasque, counting this steep ridge, is one day’s easy going. There is no way across the central range more simple or less difficult (though it is high), and it has very fine views; as one crosses the summit one has right before one culminating peaks of the Pyrenees, the group of the Maladetta.

Just to the east of the Port de Venasque (which is about 8000 feet high—to be accurate, 7930) is the Pic de Sauvegarde, a path which is almost a road leads up to it; one pays a toll; it is a sort of Piccadilly. The one purpose of the climb is to see from the summit a very good all-round view of the high peaks, which crowd round this turning point in the chain.

A less frequented valley, but one quite sufficiently frequented, is that of the Lys, which one turns into out of the main road by going off to the right; about 2½ miles after leaving Luchon, a carriage road, 4 miles in length, takes one up through the woods at Lys to an inn; thence forward in the lovely valley and the half circle of peaks above, there is country wild enough for every one, but no good camping ground.

A further experiment for the man on foot, and one in which he will be more dependent upon himself and less in fear of invasion, is that of the Val Dastan, by which, and the high Port d’Oo, one can get down to Venasque. For this valley one goes up the new lateral road from Luchon as though one were going into the Val d’Aure and to Arreau. One may leave the road at any point after St. Aventin to follow the stream below, but it is best to go on to a village called Gari, which is somewhat more than 5 miles from Luchon. At Gari is a road going south along a valley; you follow that valley still going southward, till the road comes to an end in the neighbourhood of a wood which bars the upper end of the vale. A path, however, continues the line of the road, makes its way through the wood, and at the upper end of it you come out upon a fine lake. There is an inn to the south of this lake, and if you will go on a little north of the inn along the shores of the lake you will find very good camping ground. Indeed, it is wise to camp over-night on this side of the range, for the climb up from Luchon is fatiguing, and the country of a sort inviting one to rest and look about one.

Rejoining the path it passes between two small lakes, just after leaving the wood, and climbs up the torrent past the little tarn called the Lac Glacé, immediately above which is the Port d’Oo. This port is a very high one, it falls little short of 9000 feet, and it is not more than a depression in the ridge around. On the further side a steep scramble marked by no path, gets one down into the valley beneath the Posets, and this valley is the same as that which I have described as lying to the east of the Col de Gistain and leading to the Bridge of Cuberre, and so to Venasque. It is a long and difficult way round to that town from Luchon by the Port d’Oo, but it is the wildest and therefore the best excursion one can make in the circuit of these hills.

I should mention before I leave this district that curious plain, Des Etangs “Of the Lakes,” where is the Trou du Toro, a small circular pond.

The main source of the Garonne lies high up as befits the dignity of such a river in among the very noblest peaks of the Pyrenees; it springs from the eastern point of the Maladetta, flows down in a torrent to this plain “Of the Lakes,” plunges into the little pond, and there wholly disappears! It reappears 2000 feet down at the Goueil de Jeou, on the northern side of the mountains, having burrowed right under the main range, and so runs down to Las Bordas. Sceptics to whom all in these bewitched mountains is abhorrent, from the realities of Lourdes to the legends of Charlemagne, annoyed by this miraculous action on the part of the Garonne, poured heavy dyes into the Trou du Toro, and then went and watched anxiously at Goueil de Jeou to see the coloured stream emerge; but the Garonne was too dignified to oblige them, and the water came out limpid and pure; as for the dye, it has stuck somewhere underground in the hills, and is colouring rocks that will never be seen until the consummation of all things at the end of the world.