Chapter X: Preface: To the Fourth Edition (8)

Note that these two cols and the stretch from road to road and from inn to inn can only with some peril be undertaken in one day from Urdos. In fine weather and without accident the thing is simple enough, but when you are baulked for an hour or two by the trail, or if you start a little late, or if you are detained by mist you may very easily not manage the passage from one of the great roads to the other, near as they look upon the map.

With everything going well, carrying little weight and fresh, it is quite three hours (and more like three and a half) from Urdos to the bridge over the Aragon. It will be another two up the Canal Roya and two more over its col and down the other side to the high road, and even from that point on the high road, if you follow the road only, there are two more hours before you reach Sallent. It is a very heavy day of quite 30 miles with two cols, one of 5000 feet, the other of 6500 feet, to be taken on the way, and it is foolish to undertake either the Col des Moines or the Canal Roya from Urdos without allowing for the chance of one night at least upon the mountain.

The second pair of valleys, that of the Gallego on the Spanish side, and the Gave d’Ossau on the French side, are linked together by two very easy passes, and one difficult one of which I shall speak in a moment.

The old port, now called “Port Vieux de Sallent,” or the “Puerta Vieja,” is easy enough, though it went over a higher part of the mountain than the new pass just next door to it. I say it is _higher_ than the pass now used, and this contrast is not infrequently found in the Pyrenees, some feature or other in the topography of the ridge making it more convenient for a native to cross by a slightly higher saddle than by some lower one close by. For instance, the Somport itself is somewhat higher than a quite unknown gap four miles to the west of it, but this lower gap was never used because it led into a Spanish valley of a difficult and most isolated kind.

In the case of the two passes from the Val d’Ossau into Spain, the obstacle which prevented the lower pass being used until quite lately, was a great mass of rock overhanging the sources of the Gave d’Ossau, in the highest part of the valley. When the new highway was made, this rock was blasted and cut so as to take the road round it, and thus the low pass beyond, called Pourtalet, was utilized. It is below 6000 feet and exactly 1000 feet lower than the old Port de Sallent. But even nowadays, if you are on foot you will do well to cross by the old port, high as it is, for it saves time.

While I am on the subject I must warn the reader that the 1/100,000 map does not accurately convey the shape of the last two miles of the road upon the French side, and the line of road mere guesswork upon the Spanish, though the shape of the mountains is accurately given.

This pair of valleys is remarkable for another feature upon the French and upon the Spanish slopes: their wildness. Let me speak first of the French. The French valley, the Val d’Ossau, is one of the wildest and most deserted in the Pyrenees, and also it is the one most densely clothed with forests. The reason of this is that there is less flat ground at the foot of it than in any other. Nowhere does it expand into even a narrow circus, and about Laruns, where it debouches upon the lowlands, and the summit of the pass into Spain, a distance of perhaps 17 miles, there is but one large village, close to the bottom of the valley, and that owes its existence to Thermal Springs; it is called Eaux Chaudes—a dismal place, squeezed in between the torrent and the cliff, dirty, uncomfortable, and sad. Higher up, however, a tiny hamlet, the humblest and most remote in the world, one would think, has of recent years taken on some little importance through travel; this is the hamlet of Gabas, which may be said to consist in three inns, a ruinous chapel, most pathetic, and a customs station. Of the excellent inn at Gabas, I will speak elsewhere.

This valley of the Ossau is the base for two districts, both of which are very Pyrenean, and on either of which a man may spend a day or a month of lonely pleasure. One is the steep and very fine valley of the Sousquéou, the other is the short and extremely steep torrent bed which leads up to the foot of the Pic du Midi.

This mountain dominates all this section of the Pyrenees. The approach to it by the Col des Moines I have already mentioned; this ascent by the short valley from Gabas, through the woods, is better, because you come right up on to the mountain suddenly from the depth of a vast forest, and you feel its isolation.

I know of no hill which seems more to deserve a name or to possess a personality. Round its base there is matter for camping for days or for weeks, good water, lakes to fish in, shelter, both of rocks and of trees, human succour not too far off (Gabas is not three miles as the crow flies from the summit of the mountain), and a complete independence.

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.

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.

That part of it of which I shall here speak, the part right up against the frontier ridge, is included between the big lump of mountains which surrounds Panticosa (of which the Vignemale is the most conspicuous) and the other big lump of peaks which is called the Maladetta group.

It has three towns corresponding to its three valleys, Torla in the Broto upon the Ara, Bielsa upon the Cinca, Venasque upon the Esera.

The Cinca, however, receives, right up at its sources, an affluent longer and more important than itself, called the Cinqueta, and on this stream is a group of villages, none of them important enough to be called a town, but standing so close together as to make a considerable centre of habitation.

But for these towns, the group of villages I have mentioned and one or two tiny hamlets, these Spanish valleys are wholly deserted, and they form by far the most rugged and difficult district of all the Pyrenees.

They also hold the highest peaks of the mountains; the culminating Nethou Peak of the Maladetta group, just upon the eastern edge of the district (11,168 feet); the Posets (11,047), the Mont Perdu (10,994), the Pic d’Enfer (10,109), the Vignemale (10,820) all stand here. Most of the high peaks are in Spain, but it is another feature of the district that the frontier ridge is higher here than in any other part, and is also more continuous. The summit of the Vignemale forms part of it, and the notches by which it may be traversed in these 40 to 50 miles lie but very little below the surrounding peaks. Only 3 of the passes miss the 8000 foot line. The Port du Venasque, at the extreme eastern end opposite the Maladetta, is 7930 feet in height; the Port de Gavarnie at the extreme western end is 7481. These two form the chief thoroughfares over this high and difficult bit; that of Gavarnie, upon the French side, is being prepared for wheeled traffic. The third, the Port de Pinède, also misses the 8000 foot line, but only misses it by 25 feet. All the other passes are but slight depressions in this barrier of cliff. The Tillon or rather the passage to the side of it, is little under 10,000 feet, the Pla Laube is over 8000, so is the Marcadou, so is the better known and more used pass of Bielsa, while the Port d’Oo is 9846, and the Portillon d’O is 9987.

The impression conveyed by this long line, the only line in the Pyrenees where even small glaciers may be found, is of an impassable sheer height, just notched enough at one point on the west to admit a painful scramble into the valley of the Gave d’Pau and on the east to admit one into the Valley of the Lys (into the basin of the Adour, that is) at one end, and into the basin of Garonne at the other.

A journey through Sobrarbe can be undertaken either from Sallent and Panticosa or from Gavarnie, and in either case your exploration of high Sobrarbe begins at the hamlet of Bujaruelo, which the French call Boucharo.

How to reach Bujaruelo from Gavarnie I shall describe later: for the moment I propose a start on the Spanish side.

If you start from the Spanish side at Panticosa, a plain path takes you up the valley of the Caldares until you are right under the frontier ridge. There the path bifurcates; you take the right-hand branch along the chain of lakes that lies just under the wall of the main ridge, and you climb slowly up to the path at the head of it. The whole climb from Panticosa to this pass is 3040 feet, and it will take you from early morning until noon. Or, if you will start before a summer dawn, at any rate until the heat of the morning. For though it looks so short a distance on the map, and though there is no difficult passage, it is very hard going. The reason I mention this matter of hours is that when you have got down the other side into the valley of the Ara, you are still 8 miles by the mule path from Bujaruelo, and though it is all downhill, you will hardly do these 8 miles under two hours and a half; however early you start, therefore, the back of the day is likely to be broken by the time you come to Bujaruelo. Once there a new difficulty arises; for Bujaruelo is not a pleasant place to sleep in. I have not myself slept there, but the verdict is universal. Though you are coming from a Spanish town the Customs may bother you at this hamlet because they cannot tell but that you have come over some one of the high passages from France, such as the Pla Laube up the valley. At any rate, unless you are going to camp out you must push on to _Torla_, 5 miles on down the valley, and you will pass through a great gorge on your way. Now at Torla the hospitality, though large and vague, is good enough.

If, however, you are taking the Upper Sobrarbe with the idea of camping, you must not go on to Torla, but you must do as follows. Just at the far end of the gorge of which I have spoken the path crosses the river Ara by a bridge called the Bridge of the Men of Navarre. There you will see a path leaving yours to the left, and zigzagging up the mountain side eastward. This is the one you must take. It climbs 600 feet, gets you round the cascade which here pours into the Ara from a lateral valley, and finally puts you on to the level floor of that lateral valley: it is called the valley of Arazas. Here there is excellent camping ground everywhere, and it will be high time to look for a camp by the time you are well upon the floor of that gorge; you may have to go up some little way to find wood, but much of this valley in its higher part is clothed with forests. The next day you must, as best you can, force your way to Bielsa, and unless the weather is fine you may very possibly have to sleep another night upon the mountain.

The trouble of this difficult bit is the great height of the lateral ridges. At the end of this fine valley of Arazas, which curves slowly up northward as you go, is the huge mass of the Mont Perdu, and you cannot get out of the valley without going over the shoulder of it. In order to do this proceed as follows, and go along the stream until the path crosses over from the northern to the southern bank, at a place where the cliffs on either side come very close to the water. The path goes along under and partially upon the face of these cliffs in a perilous sort of way, until it comes to a lateral streamlet pouring right down the side of the terminal mountain. This lateral streamlet you must be sure to recognize, for upon your recognizing it depends the success of your adventure; and you may know it thus: The place where your path strikes it, is exactly 1000 yards from the place where you crossed the main stream. When you come to this lateral streamlet you will see, or should see, a transverse path running very nearly due east and west; and up that in an eastward direction, immediately above you, a distance of 800 yards, upon the shoulder of the great mountain is the depression for which the path makes. It is called the _Col de Gaulis_.

For all of this by the way you will do well to consult Schrader the whole time. What the going is like on the further side of this col I cannot tell for I have never come down it, but I know that your way descends right by a very short and steep gully in which a torrent makes straight for the valley beneath, and I know that when you have made that valley your troubles are over.

You fall through a descent of just under 2000 feet in a distance of less than a mile as the crow flies. You must therefore be prepared for a very steep bit of work. Once in the valley, however, everything is straightforward. On reaching the main stream of this new valley (which runs north and south) you turn to the right, southward, and follow its right bank between it and the cliff; you cross a rivulet flowing from a deep lateral ravine about a mile further on, and less than half a mile further again see a new path leaving your path and going to your left, crossing over the valley and its stream, and making up a gulley which comes down facing you from the opposing heights. Take this new path up this gulley (the path runs everywhere to the _south_ of the water), and you will find yourself after a climb of somewhat over a 1000 feet on the Col d’Escuain. Thence the way is perfectly clear, running due south-east for 5 miles, just above the edge of the cliffs of the gorge of Escuain, until you reach the village of Escuain perched above that ravine.

Whatever efforts you may have made, and however early you may have started, you will hardly have reached human beings again at this place until, as at Bujaruelo the day before, the back of the day is broken. Nevertheless, unless you are to camp out again upon the mountain, you must try and push on to Bielsa. It is more than 10 miles, however much you cut off the windings of the path, which takes you past the chapel of San Pablo, leaving the village of Rivella on the left up the mountain side, then across a steep cliff down to the profound gorge of the Cinca; from there an unmistakable road goes through Salinas de Sin and follows straight on up the valley to Bielsa just 4 miles further on.

If you can do that in one day you will have done well.

There is another and shorter crossing, which, though it is invariably used by the mountaineers, I have not described because most people unused to the Pyrenees would shirk it. When you have come down from the Col de Gaulis into the valley below, if instead of going southward to the right you go northward to the left, crossing the stream, and climbing up on the further side of it, the path takes you at last to a very high col, called in Spanish the Col of Anisclo, but in French, the Col of Anicle. This col is not far short of 9000 feet high, and it is particularly painful to have to attempt it just after the difficult business of the Col de Gaulis. It means two ports within a few hours of each other, the second one 3000 feet above the valley, and what that is in the way of fatigue, a man must go through in order to know. Moreover, the descent on the far side from the Col of Anisclo is exceedingly steep.

However, if you do this short cut you have the advantage of finding yourself at once in the main valley of the Cinca and, when once you are on the banks of that river, you are not more than 8 miles or so from Bielsa by a good path leading all the way down the stream on the left bank. You save in this way quite 6 miles, and reduce your whole journey from the mouth of the valley of Arazas to Bielsa to a little less than 20 miles.

The distance you have to go before you come to human beings is much the same by either track. Escuain is just about as far from the Col de Gaulis, as is Las Cortez, the first hamlet in the Cinca valley. Again, by this shorter way you miss the gorge of the Escuain, but you see the huge cliffs of Pinède, which are perhaps the finest wall in the Pyrenees with their summits along the crest of 9000 feet, 5000 feet or more above the stream at their feet: it is the edge of this ridge of cliff which must be crossed at the Col of Anisclo. Either way therefore is as fine and either as deserted as the other. But the second much shorter and far more painful.

Before I leave this passage between the first and second of the Sobrarbe valleys—between the valley of Broto, that is (as they call the valley of the river Ara) and the valley of the Cinca—a few notes on the road should be added.

First, I have said that Torla, Bujaruelo (Boucharo) may be made from Gavarnie as well as from Panticosa. This is so; and if you undertake the exploration of Sobrarbe from Gavarnie, it is a much easier business to get to Bujaruelo from the French hamlet, than it is to get to it from Panticosa.

The excellent road from Gavarnie to the top of the port is a very small matter, and from there down into Bujaruelo is an easy descent of three miles. If you start from Gavarnie, therefore, in the early morning, you can with an effort and in good weather go the whole length of the Val d’Arazas, over the Col de Gaulis, and the Col of Anisclo and sleep in Bielsa that same night, or you can, taking it more easily, make a camp at the head of the Val d’Arazas, or you can break your journey in the valley between the two Cols of Gaulis and Anisclo, camping there for the night; I am told the camping ground in this gorge is not very good, otherwise that would be the ideal place to break your journey.

You may next remark that in the lower part of the Val d’Arazas, right on the path, there is a good inn, which will save your camping out in the valley at all, if you are not so inclined; but the inn is so far down the valley that it does not save you very much in the next day’s walk. Further, you should note that all this group of valleys, the Arazas, the Pinède (which is that through which the Cinca flows), the Velos, which is the stream at the foot of the Col de Gaulis, the Escuain, etc., are, unlike most others in the Pyrenees, true _ravines_. They correspond to what Western Americans mean when they use the Spanish word Cañons, that is _clefts_ sunk deep into the stuff of the world and bounded by precipices upon either side. These not only make the whole district a striking exception in the Pyrenean range, but also make the finding of and keeping to a path necessary as it is throughout the Pyrenees, more necessary here than anywhere else. If, for instance, you lose the path at the head of the Arazas, where it goes up the cliffs, you will never make the Col de Gaulis though it is less than a mile away, and if you miss the path up to the Col of Anisclo you can never get down into the Pinède at all.

It is worth remembering that from the foot of the Col de Gaulis a path of sorts leads up the flank of the mountain to the Spanish side of the Brèche de Roland. I have never followed it, but I believe it to be an easier approach than that over the glacier upon the French side.

Once you are at Bielsa on the Cinca, you are in the centre and, as it were, in the geographical capital of the high Sobrarbe and it is your next business to go on eastward into the last valley, that of the Esera, the central town of which is Venasque. Between the upper part of these two valleys and right between these two towns lies the great mass of the Posets, a huge mountain which lifts up in a confused way like an Atlantic wave and is within a very few feet of being the highest in the Pyrenees. It is a mountain which, though it is not remarkable for precipices or for any striking sky line, should by no means be crossed (though it can easily be ascended), but must be turned.

The straight line from Bielsa to Venasque lies slightly south of east and is but 15 miles in length, but it runs right over the mass of the Posets and crosses that jumble of hills only a couple of miles south of the culminating peak. Venasque must therefore be reached by a divergence one way or the other, and one approaches it from Bielsa by going either to the north or to the south of the mountain group of the Posets. The northern way is a trifle shorter but much more difficult and much more lonely. On the other hand, it takes one into the very heart of the highest Pyrenees, right under the least known and the most absolute part of the barrier which they make between France and Spain. I will therefore describe this northern way first, as I think most travellers who desire an acquaintance with the hills will take it.

From Bielsa a path going eastward crosses the Barrosa (at the confluence of which with the Cinca Bielsa is built), runs round the flank of the mountain and goes right up to the Col of the Cross “De La Cruz,” 4000 feet above the town. You may know this pass, if you have a compass, by observing that it is due east of Bielsa. To be accurate, the dead line east and west from the top of the Col exactly strikes the northernmost houses of the town.

The eastern descent of the Col is quite easy and once down upon the banks of the Cinqueta, you see, half a mile to the north of you, the hospital or refuge of Gistain. From that point you follow up the valley north-eastward, on the right or northern bank of the stream under a steep hill-side for a couple of miles until you come to a fairly open place where the two upper forks of the Cinqueta meet. You cross the northern fork and go on eastward and northward up the eastern one, still keeping at the foot of the northern hill-side.

What follows is not very easy to describe and should be carefully noted. What you have to pick out is a particular col on the opposite slope beyond the stream. This col is three miles or so from the fork, five from the Refuge, and is called “the Col de Gistain.” As you go up this valley the opposing side is formed of the buttresses of the Posets. From that mountain four torrents descend to join the east fork of the Cinqueta, between the place where you crossed and the col you are seeking. The first torrent falls into the valley which you are climbing half a mile or so after you have crossed the north fork and begun the new valley; a second comes in about a thousand yards further on, a third about a mile further yet, and you may see each of them coming into the stream at your feet from down the opposing side, which consists, as I have said, in the buttresses of the Posets.

Another way of recognizing these three torrents (and it is essential to recognize them) is to note that between the first and the second the slope is not violent, while between the second and the third it is a rocky ridge.

When you have seen the third come in, you must watch _exactly a mile further on_ for the entry of the fourth. This fourth one is your mark by which to find the col. Just after passing in front of the mouth of this fourth torrent, your path, such as it is, will cross the Cinqueta, turn sharply eastward, and begin to climb up the right or northern bank of this fourth torrent.

The ascent is not steep, and in 1500 yards you are on the _Col de Gistain_ between 8200 and 8300 feet above the sea, and almost exactly 3000 feet above the spot where you left the north fork of the Cinqueta to follow the eastern valley. Another way of making certain that you do not miss the all-important turning is to count the torrents coming in upon _your_ side, the _north_ side, of the valley; that is the torrents, each coming in from its own ravine, which your path crosses.

They also are three in number and fairly equidistant one from another, the first about a mile after you have crossed the north fork, the next a mile further on, and the next just under a mile beyond that. It is after you have crossed the third and have proceeded another 500 or 600 yards that your path to the Col de Gistain will go off opposite to the right, crossing the stream at your feet, and following the torrent that falls from that opposing side.

Yet another way of making sure is to watch (if the weather is fine) for the col itself, an unmistakable notch with a ridge of sharp rock just to the north of it and a less abrupt arète going south of it up to the summit of the Posets.

I have written at this length of the passage not only from the difficulty of discovering, but also from the danger that will attend any delay in finding it. If you go on past the turning where the path to the col goes off eastward you may get over the wrong port on to the French side, miles from anywhere, or you may take the rocks of the Anes Cruces and find yourself on a ridge beyond which there is no going down either way; while if you turn off too early you may climb right up on to the glacier of the Posets, and lose a day and be compelled to pass a night in that frost.

Once you have got to the top of the Col de Gistain, however, you are free. All the running water below you leads you down into the valley of Venasque; there is no steepness and no difficulty. The rudimentary path follows the stream, there is a little cabane on the upper waters of it, soon the floor of the valley widens out a trifle, and four miles on, not quite 3000 feet below the pass, is another cabane; that of the Turmo. The path from this point becomes more definite; it crosses the stream 2 miles down in order to avoid rocks upon the southern side, recrosses it again a mile later to negotiate a steep and narrow gorge, it comes over once again to the northern side by a bridge a few hundred yards further on, and almost immediately reaches the valley of the Esera at a point 9 miles or so from the summit of the pass. Here an ancient and remarkable bridge, the Bridge of Cuberre, crosses the Esera, and enables you to gain the wide mule track to Venasque, which town lies rather more than 2 miles down the road.

It will be seen that the whole difficulty of this passage lies in making certain of the Col de Gistain.

If I have exaggerated that difficulty I have fallen into an error on the right side, for to miss the col is to fail altogether and possibly to be in danger. If those who have approached the Col de Gistain from the east, or who have only seen the place in clear weather, imagine it to be discoverable under all circumstances, they are in error; indeed, if the weather is bad, it is just as well not to attempt the passage at all.

This northern way from Bielsa to Venasque is, as I have said, the most difficult. The southern way is as follows.

You go down the gorge to the Cinca by the road to Salinas de Sin, there the road branches, the main part goes on down the Cinca, the side road goes sharply off to the left up the first affluent of the Cinca, a lateral valley which points south-east, and is that of the Cinqueta. This road crosses the Cinca, follows the eastern or right bank of the lateral stream for some two-thirds of a mile, then crosses over and in about 3 miles from the crossing reaches the hamlet of Sarabillo. Thence it proceeds, still upon the same side of the stream and facing a considerable cliff upon the further bank, to the village of El Plan, which lies somewhat less than 5 miles up from Sarabillo, and is reached by crossing the stream again just before one comes to the village.

At El Plan one may repose. One will have walked by the mule paths more than 12 miles, and there is a long way before one.

The main path goes on to the next village, that of St. Juan, and so up the Cinqueta to the hospital of Gistain, where it joins the northern route we have just been tracing. The southern way, which I am now describing, is by a path leaving El Plan at the end of the village and going down to the river (which here runs through a broad valley floor), across the river by a bridge, and then up the torrent valley of the Sentina, a little south of east. The path runs on the right or northern bank of this torrent, and any path or tracks to be seen crossing the water are not to your purpose. Keep always to the same side of the stream until you come to the col, which is more than 4 but less than 5 miles from El Plan and is called the Col de Sahun. From this col the path continues a little less clearly marked, but quite easy, down the sharp valley on the further side to the village of Sahun, which lies exactly due east of the col and just over 3 miles from it. The whole passage, therefore, from El Plan to Sahun, is a matter of not more than two hours, and from Sahun to Venasque there is an excellent mule road following up the open valley of the Esera; a distance of just 4 miles.

By this southern approach the whole distance is but a plain walk of under 20 miles with only one low and easy col to climb, but of course it tells you far less of what the Pyrenees can be than does the northern passage.

* * * * *

With the valley of the Esera and the town of Venasque you have come to the end of Sobrarbe, and of all that remote and ill-known district which is the most savage and the most alluring in these great hills. Indeed, you are no longer properly in the Sobrarbe, but rather in the subdivision of Ribagorza, which had a Count to itself in the Middle Ages, and was the march between Aragon and Catalonia. From Venasque you can get back again at your ease next day, by one of the best known mule tracks in the Pyrenees, to the French valleys and to wealth again at Luchon.

IV. THE TARBES VALLEYS AND LUCHON

Three valleys, two profound, one shallow, depend upon and radiate from the town of Tarbes which stands in the plain below the mountains. Their rail system and their road system converge upon Tarbes, and it is from Tarbes that they should be explored.

The two long valleys are the valley of Lourdes, down which flows the Gave de Pau and the long valley of Arreau or Val d’Aure (it is the longest enclosed valley of the Pyrenees). The short valley is the valley of Bigorre, wherein the Adour arises.

For a man on foot these three valleys are of interest chiefly in their highest portions alone. The energy of French civilization has penetrated them everywhere with light railways and with roads, and has united them all three by a great lateral road running from Arreau to Luz over what used to be the difficult and ill-known port of Tourmalet; while it has thus done a great deal for those who only use the road, it has hurt the district from the point of view which I am taking in this division of my book.

There is indeed one great hill which no development of roads can effect, and which is the chief interest of all these three valleys for the man on foot. It rises in the very centre of the district and is called the Pic du Midi de Begorre. This peak stands thrust forward from the main range, a matter of more than 10 miles from the watershed, and isolated upon every side save where the isthmus of the Tourmalet binds it to the general system not much more than 2000 feet below its summit. But the Pic du Midi de Begorre, fine as it is, does not afford so many opportunities to the man exploring the Pyrenees on foot as do other peaks. It is a bare mountain, all precipice upon the northern side, and steep every way. There is no camping ground save at the foot of it in the little wood above Abay. Moreover, there is a road right up it, an observatory upon the top, and arrangements for sleeping and for eating and drinking as well. No other of the great mountains of Europe have been put more thoroughly in harness. The chief use of it (for the purposes of this book) is that from its summit you will get a better general view of the eastern Pyrenees than from any other point reached with equal ease, and that you can see in one view, as you look southward, the Maladetta on your extreme left, the Pic du Midi d’Ossau on your extreme right, each about 30 to 40 miles away. It is also a point from which the sharp demarcation between the mountain and the plain, which characterizes the northern slope of the Pyrenees, is very clear; for this peak, jutting out as it does from the mass of the hills, dominates all the flat country beneath.

The roads of these three valleys are somewhat overrun—even in their upper portions. That from the end of the light railway from Luz to Gavarnie, is, in the summer, the only really spoilt piece of the Pyrenees; that from Arreau up to Vielle Aure in the furthest valley is less frequented, but there is no particular reason for stopping in it or for camping in it, especially when one considers the waste spaces on either side, where one may be wholly remote and at peace. There is, however, in one branch of this valley, that is in the gulley which runs due south from Trainzaygues, a good camping ground of woods and stream. A road runs up it to the refuge of Riomajou at its summit, and from this two difficult cols can be reached by two branch paths which go over either shoulder of the Pic d’Ourdissettou, that on the right or west gets one down to Real and Bielsa; that on the left ultimately and with some difficulty to Gistain and El Plan. There is also an entry from the main valley into the Sobrarbe, going up the main valley through Aragnouet, and up the very steep pass called the Pass de Barroude; one also comes out by this way on to Real and Bielsa, but it is by the other fork of the Spanish valley.

The pass called the Port de Bielsa proper marks what was once perhaps the main pass north and south over these hills. It leaves the valley at Leplan above Aragnouet and stands between the two passes just mentioned. These and all the difficult ports, springing from the three valleys of Tarbes and crossing the central part of the range, lead one into the Sobrarbe and the track described in the last division of this chapter.

The valley of Arreau has an eastern fork following the Louron at the head of which are further high passes, all in the neighbourhood of 8000 feet, which lead one into the Posets group and the eastern end of Sobrarbe. Of these the most interesting is the port of Aiguestoites, which is that upon which one comes by error if one misses the Col de Gistain on the northern way from Bielsa to Venasque.

The Cirques—the great semicircles of precipices—which have always been remarked as distinctive of the Pyrenees, are crowded in this region. The Cirque de Gavarnie is the most famous, and therefore, in our time at least, impossible for a man who really wants to wander. You cannot be alone there; but the Cirque of Troumouse is not hackneyed and should be seen once at least. You may reach it by taking the road up from Luz to Gavarnie, and following it as far as Jedre. Here the Gave branches, you go up the zigzag of the road, past the church of Jedre, and take the path which leaves the highway to the left and follows up the eastern Gave, or Gave de Heas on its left bank. The path crosses that stream 2 miles further on and follows up the right bank to the little hamlet of Heas (which gives the torrent its name). It continues getting less distinct past the chapel of Heas; you turn a corner of a rock and find yourself in this huge, bare, deserted circle of precipices with the Pic de Gerbats at the left end of it, the Pic of Gabediou at the east end, and in the midst the highest point, the Pic d’Arrouye, which just misses 10,000 feet. The path continued will take you up past some cabanes over the little glacier, and across that steep and very difficult ridge down into the Spanish valley of Pinède—which ends up, of course, in Bielsa.

But for these ramifications of their higher ravines, the three valleys of Tarbes are the least suitable for a man travelling on foot; of the three, however, the Val d’Aure will afford the most variety and the most isolation.

If, for any reason, one of these three valleys is chosen for a short holiday, Tarbes—where there is a good hotel, The Ambassadeurs—is the centre from which one should start and to which one should return; it faces right at the mountains, it is the most truly Pyrenean town of all the plain, and it is full of excellent entertainment. From Tarbes also start the three lines which take you up each valley, to Argelès, to Bagnères de Bigorre, and to Arreau.

_Luchon_

The valley of Luchon stands by itself as a separate division of the Pyrenees. It has character altogether its own, formed both by political accidents, which separate it from its twin valley of the Upper Garonne—the Val d’Aran—and by its physical conformation which thrusts the level floor of it up further into the hills than any other of the Pyrenean gorges. It is indeed made by nature to be one of the great international roads of Europe and to lead into Spain, for it resembles in many ways the trench running from Oloron southwards along which the main Roman road, and the main modern road find their way into Aragon. The valley of Luchon would undoubtedly have formed the platform for such a road had not two accidents interfered with that destiny: the first, the great height of the ridge at the end of this particular valley; the second, the lack of open country to the south.

The Roman road from Oloron over the Somport finds a wide plain and an ancient city at Jaca, within a day’s journey of the central summit. But the valley of the Esera (which is the Spanish valley corresponding to that of Luchon) is a good three days’ travel in length before it gets one out of the hills, and the first town of the plains on the Spanish side (the modern symbol of whose importance is the presence of the railway) is Barbastro 60 miles in a straight line from the watershed, and not far short of 90 following the turns of the mule path and lower down the road which reaches it.

But for these accidents the way through Luchon would undoubtedly be the great avenue from Toulouse to Saragossa, and even as it is the pass over the ridge here (called the Port de Venasque) is the most trodden and the clearest of all the passes, other than those followed by direct highways.

The valley of Luchon is the very centre of the mountain system, for it lies just east of that division between the two halves of the mountains, the eastern and the western chains. It is a frontier also between two types of scenery and two kinds of travel. It is the last of the deep flat valleys running north and south, which are, so far eastward, the characteristic of the chain. Immediately beyond it, to the east, begins a combination of hills of which St. Girons is the capital, and into which still further east penetrate the much larger valleys of the Ariège and of the Tet.

The Thermal Springs of Luchon, and a chance popularity which made it the wealthiest holiday place in all the mountains, have now fixed it as a sort of central spot which sums up all travel in the Pyrenees. For nearly a century it has had the character, which continually increases in it, of great luxury, and of a colony, as it were, of the main towns of Europe. But, for reasons which I mention when I come to speak of inns and hotels in these mountains, it is in some way saved from the odiousness which most cosmopolitan holiday places radiate around them like an evil smell. The influence of Paris is in some part responsible for better manners and greater dignity than such tourist places usually show.

The little town is very old; it is probably the site of the Baths which were mentioned as the most famous of the Pyrenean waters as early as the first century, and which certainly stood in this country of Comminges. For Luchon is the modern centre of the Comminges, and the Comminges is first historical district of the Pyrenees west of the old Roman province.

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.