HRP Wallon to Oulete de Gaube - Aug 14, 2013

For details see ebook on
http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4998902-a-walk-on-the-haute-route-pyrenees
which can be purchased for £2.49 with the proceeds going to maintenance of mountain refuges.



I was at breakfast by about 07.15.  There was cereal but no milk just milk powder so I just had café au lait and some sweet bread and butter.  I sat and talked to the French fisherman and gathered that the trout were up to about 20 cms but fun, he preferred fishing in rivers to lakes and had fished in Scotland.  He had fished for salmon in the Basque area of France but much preferred trout fishing.  I had asked the gardien to try and book me a bed at the Refuge de Baysellance but it was full and he managed to book me into the Refuge des Oulette de Gaube instead.  This would leave me a slightly longer walk into Gavarnie and it would mean that the 580 metre climb to the Hourquette d’Ossoue would be in the cool of the morning not the heat of the afternoon.

I left the refuge at 07.47, briefly downhill and then turned off the path to Cauterets and across the Gave du Marcaudau and slowly up to the Lac d’Arratille (2247m) which I reached at about 09.30.  Then a climb steeply to the Col d’Arratille (2528m) which I reached after crossing a short section of snow at about 10.45.  I stopped briefly and had my photograph taken by a fellow walker and then along a nice contour path crossing another section of snow before reaching the Col des Mulets (2591m) after a short sharp climb at midday.  I stopped and had some lunch of bread, the last of the Hendaye saucisson and some dried apricots and chocolate.

I started off again after about 30 minutes and took a few photographs of wild flowers on the descent.  I kept my Yaktrax on my wrist on the descent to be easily accessible as the guide book had mentioned snow in early summer and this being 2013, the snow was still there in midsummer.  They certainly made me feel safer walking down and across two large sections of snow.  I took it easy on the way down as apart from the snow, there were some steepish sections of scree and loose rock.  I eventually reached the plateau below the northern slopes of Vignemale (3298m) with its glacier and arrived at the Refuge des Oulette de Gaube (2151m) shortly after 14.00.

I checked in at the refuge and had to pay in advance for dinner, bed and breakfast.  Again no showers or hot water but relatively clean wash basins and toilets.  I ordered an iced tea and who should I meet but Tobi and Nina who after a day’s rest in Cauterets on the 13th had walked in that morning from Cauterets in about 3½hours.  I chatted to them for a while before they set off to climb up to Hourquette d’Ossoue with the aim of camping lower down at the Barrage d’Ossoue or Cabane de Lourdes that night.  They left the refuge at about 15.00.  I had a beer and wrote up my diary sitting in the sun shining over Vignemale.  After drinking a coca cola at around 16.30, I went for a walk on the plateau below the refuge wearing my crocs and crossing several streams.  The streams were only a few hundred metres from the foot of the glacier and extremely cold.

Being in France, dinner was at 19.00 and again generous helpings and I managed 4 bowls of vegetable soup, 2 helpings of beef (or was it lamb) stew with couscous, cheese, crème brûlée with ½ litre of red wine.  I sat opposite a Frenchman from Brittany with his wife and 11 year old daughter who were spending a few days in the mountains. To bed about 20.45 and read for about 20 minutes before sleeping well.  Total cost for dinner, bed and breakfast including beer and wine was €50.