Sick of the scottish dreich, Juliette and I decided to try hillwalking in the "sunshine" this year and so while out visiting my folks in France, nipped out for an ascent of "La Frau" - a 1925m peak near to Montsegur.
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| Juliette in the woods |
Starting out up the GR7 we all seemed well, despite our map being a print from google maps, the start of the day was through some forestry land - and in true form as we got higher, the paths resembled less and less what we had on our map - eventually forcing a retreat once we started heading down hill, when there definitely should only have been up! Luckily Juliette spotted a terrace above us in the woods that turned out to be the path we were after and so after our initial humming and hawing we were off again!
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| Juliette with Montsegur in the background |
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| The Skull |
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heading up towards La Frau
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Once we got out of the woods and onto the hill proper, the views north and east were fantastic and the hill had a couple of interesting cliffs with caves. Unfortunately, the temps were in the high 20s, and being a pasty scots lad, that's pretty close to the point where I burst into flames! Luckily by applying 1" thick coating of suncream and hiding under a sunhat of sombrero proportions I survived to the summit! I was extra suspicious as at this point we spotted a Bearded Vulture (Lammergier) following us.........
The views from the summit over the Pyrenees proper were stunning, with still a lot of snow in evidence, and someone had nicely left a skull-on-a-stick in the cairn too.
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The Pyrenees from La Frau
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The descent was substantially quicker than the ascent in the heat at we were back at the van, and our big container of water in virtually no time - a good few litres were quaffed to replace that lost on the hill!
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| The Summit c/w skull on a stick |
Still, back to Scotland, drizzle and midgies - but at least no shortage or water!
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