Introduction
Lourdes - Bagnères de Luchon
Only the central part of the GR®10 was covered in this trek: from Lourdes to Luchon, this corresponds to the central Pyrénées. We followed the excellent guide from the "fédération française de randonnée pédestre".
Picture below is reprint from the Topo-guide® “Pyrénées centrale - Val d'Azun”, réf.1091 © Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre, 14, rue Riquet, 75019 PARIS, Tél. : 01.44.89.93.93 or www.ffrandonnee.fr”. Reprint with authorisation.
GR® is a trade mark of the "Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre”, for any question contact www.ffrandonnee.fr.
Arrens -Estaing
Departed from Arrens (878 m), we walked along green meadows and pastures, crossing small villages and remote farms to "Viellette" where we stopped overnight. The next day, we reached the Estaing lake and start a long climb to the Ilhou lake (1975 m) via the Ilheou pass (2242 m). Good accommodation with excellent food and nice owner.
Refuge des Houlettes de Gaube
Then we continued a long
descent (left) to Les Cauterets (913 m) from
where we took a bus to reach finally the "pont d'Espagne".
From there, the path climbs slowly to the famous lake of Gaube, very
crowded
because of the chairlift that allows numerous families to spent some
time in
the mountains without too much effort.
Passing the lake on the left bank, we start to climb slowly to the the "refuge des Houlettes de Gaube" facing the Vignemale peak.
The refuge is small, crowded and with little comfort but with a beautiful view over the Vignemale. We are here in real mountains, no more meadows and pastures, it starts to look somewhat like the alps. The next day we climbed the small Vignemale (Petit Vignemale) which is the left dome in the picture below.
Grange de Holle [Top of page]
Starting at 6:30 in the morning we reach the summit after a few hours of easy climb.
Magnificant view from the summit
The summit allows beautiful view to the remaining path to Grange de Holle with the small lake of Ossoue. It was a pretty long day (8:30 H walk) with high altitude changes but the hotel (grange de Holle) was extremely comfortable with nice people.
Luz St-Sauveur - Barrèges [Top of page]
The following day we took a bus at Gavarnie to reach Luz-St-Sauveur (738 m) due to bad weather conditions: The path was totally in clouds.
From Luz-St-Sauveur it was a terrible, hot, humid and trough steep slopes to the altitude of about 1300 m where the path continued almost flat to Barrèges. In Barrèges the hot spring bath is highly recommended to remove pain in the muscles.
Leaving Barrèges we crossed again pastures and start to climb along a ski slope towards the Madamète pass that can be seen in the picture below.
After passing a few lakes on both sides we arrived to the Madamete lake.
Beautiful view over the Neouviell peak, which we will climb the next day. in contrary to was it's said in some guide books, climbing the Neouville should be realised in good conditions by people used to mountain walk and in good physical conditions too. It's definitively not a family walk.
Soulan - Esquirry - Ôo [Top of page]
Then we went up a pass and then down to Soulan, steep, long and tough descent to Soulan.
Leaving Soulan we passed Azet and continued to the Esquirry pass, which was in the clouds. Cold and humid day.
The Esquirry pass in the clouds
Finally we arrived at the Ôo lake.
Luchon [Top of page]
After the Ôo lake the path was really steep until we reached one of the final pass.
One of the last past Hourquette des
Hounts
secs (Hourquette = pass), the path can be seen on the right of the
picture.
Note the GR sign on the rock at the left.
Finally, while watching the huge vultures flying we arrived above Luchon where we took the chairlift to reach the city.
