The Pyrenees

by Hilaire Belloc

The road does not go to the actual summit, but comes out on to the shoulder of the mountains, an open space looking to the north, north-west and east, where stands the hotel which has been put up by the French Alpine Club. This hotel is not quite 2000 feet below the highest summit which lies exactly to the south of it. The other summit to the north-east, the ridge of which comes round behind the hotel, is the Pic Puigdarbet. You must allow five or six hours to get to the hotel without haste from the valley of the Tet, and the road is somewhat shorter if you start from Villefranche, than if you start from Prades, but of the two ways, much the more interesting for a man on foot is the old way by Casteil and the Brook Cady which I first described. Here you can camp half-way up the mountain without fear of disturbance from travellers, choosing, for preference, the end of the wood just under the summit, and so make that summit at dawn.

Unless you are in a hurry to get on to Perpignan, one of the best ways of treating the Canigou is to go across it from the valley of the Tet into the valley of the Tech, and from Arles on the Tech to take the railway through Ceret and Elne to Perpignan.

It is of course a long way round, but it shows you both sides of the mountain.

You could hardly get right across the main ridge from the hotel; but you can take the path that goes round the northern flank of the mountain, that is, through the wood that clothes the buttresses of the Pic Bargebit, and that comes out in the valley of the Dalmanya, a torrent running down north-eastwards from the summit. If you are afraid of losing your way you can go down into the village of Dalmanya and up thence by a clear path from the church of the village to the iron mines under the Col de Cirere; from that col there is a very winding high road (of which of course you can cut off most of the turnings) which gets you down to Corsady and so to Arles. On the southern side of the mountain you can go down the path which follows the Brook of Cady, and do your best to note the Peak of the Thirteen Winds which is the peak precisely due south of the main summit and 3000 feet from it at the end of the long ridge. When you have made quite certain which is the Peak of the Thirteen Winds, cross the brook, and work up if you can to the saddle immediately south-west of it, and between it and the Pic de Routat, which is a trifle lower and rises a thousand yards to the south-west of the Peak of the Thirteen Winds.

This col is called the Portaillet, and the valley on the further side is called “The Old or Abandoned Pass.” When you have got across you will know why. A wood covers its lower part, and a little brook called the Cambret runs through it, but there is no regular path, and it is a business to find the first huts, which are at an open space upon the stream between it and the wood, and quite 4000 feet below the col.

The descent is exceedingly steep, and there I leave it.

From these huts (which are called St. Duillem) is a good plain path down to the Tech, and to the little hamlet which has the same name as the river (Le Tech) whence the national high road takes one in 6 miles to Arles, the more usual crossing (which is not really a crossing of the mountains at all, but a crossing of the ridge to the south of it) is by the Pla de Guillem, so called because it does not go near Guillem, and this way is as plain as a pike-staff. You take the road from Villefranche to Fuilla, which is not quite 3 miles off, first up the Tet, then to the left southwards up a lateral valley, you follow that lateral valley and the high road up it from Fuilla to Py, rather more than 5 miles on, and southward all the way from Py a path goes south-west up the right bank of a torrent which comes in there. The track is quite clear and carries you up to the sources of the stream, and to the saddle in the final ridge which is called the Pla de Guillem. It is a steep climb of nearly 4000 in rather more than 4 miles. Py at the junction of the streams is just over 3200 feet above the sea. The pass is about 7000.

On the further side also the track is quite plain, pointing down due south-east through a little wood and then over the open country. It takes you down to Prats de Mollo, a jolly little town, the last on the great national road and the highest in the Tech valley. Above it the national road becomes the local road leading to the baths and waters.

So late as the Revolutionary Wars Mollo was of importance and may be again, for the Spanish armies could come over (but not with guns) from the other Mollo, which lies beyond the frontier 7 or 8 miles off south-east, over the Col of Arras. Mollo is a little lower than Py, but the descent upon it is far less steep than was the ascent upon Py. From Mollo it is somewhat more than 10 miles to Arles by the national road down the valley.

The Canigou is so particular a thing that if a man has but little time before him, or if he already knows the other Pyrenees—he might do worse than go to Perpignan and spend a week upon that mountain. It should be remembered that you have a better chance of fine weather there than in any other part of the Pyrenees, and you will usually have dryer days upon the Tech side than upon the Tet side.