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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2886 |
7th February 2017 Hiking - Walking: Mont Louis to Campsite De Barres Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: light rain then sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: 5 miles (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Tuesday 7th February – snowshoe ***** Mont Louis to Campsite De Barres - light rain then sunny periods. 5 miles, 5 hrs out. Good night in our spot under the old walls of Mont Louis, woke to light rain but mercifully the strong winds seem to have died down:) Some good news is that the diesel heater is back to full working order blasting hot air in the van making it a pleasure to have a wash in the morning! With the heat problem solved we are in not so much of a hurry to leave the Pyrenees, so after breakfast we walked the short distance to the town to buy stamps for our post cards bought in Mont Dore, get some bread and have a chat to a nice lady in the Tourist Office who confirmed that the French school kids are off all February, not the whole month but staggered. Back at the van Mag made some ham baguettes while I sorted out the snowshoes with the aim to head for the closed campsite we stopped at for a couple of nights 5 years ago! We have done this walk before but not in the snow. We left the van at 11.51 in light rain and walked through the town to the large fort with the roads nowhere near as slippery as yesterday with the ice melting. We put our snowshoes on by the walk sign saying Campsite De Barres 3.70 km. The path is well walked by people doing a circuit of the fort past where the commandos train and this is where we saw a big flock of beautiful grey headed birds feeding off the orange berries – we were pretty sure they were Field fares and on checking our bird book we are having them on the list!! We also saw both Mr & Mrs Crossbill - splendid in bright orange and green:) All this and we had only walked half a mile, leaving the Fort behind we headed down the hill to River La Tet, under the road we went up to Les Angles yesterday via our own tiny tunnel, entering the snowy pine woods. We past a dead fox that was sadly in the middle of the path near the sluice, detouring slightly away from the river we passed the Dechettrie (the dump to you and me) coming out at a busy carpark at Bouquere - the start of a Raquettes a’ Neige and Ski Nordique with several people about to start with the sun coming out and some blue sky too! We followed the snowshoe path marked 3/4 back down to the river and it was lovely with snow covered rocks and trees in the fast-flowing river. Our path closely followed the river past a small wooden bridge to the campsite which was on the other side. It was still a way to go as the river did several meanders but we soon found the bridge near where we parked before. No parking here now as it was deep in snow! While Mag was crossing the bridge, she spotted a Bullfinch, we saw them here last time too. We went and had our picnic on an old tree stump by the river - very hungry and knackered! Refreshed after ham rolls, tomatoes, nuts and half a chocolate orange (Christmas present from Rob and Hannah :). We headed back walking through the campsite full of pine trees, seeing deer foot prints in the snow until we got to the other bridge. We followed the river as far as we could and then went offpiste until we found the dump again spotting a black squirrel leaping from tree to tree:) Our legs were aching now but we soldiered on, back to the road, under the tunnel and we had the fort in sight now! We saw a dog going down the bank from the road which looked in trouble so I walked over to get a closer look and I think it had caught something wild to eat so left it. We completed the circuit of the fort and reached the van after 5 hours out covering over 5 miles! Snowshoes packed away we recovered with bread and jam and a hot cuppa. We then ran the engine for half an hour to top up the battery as we haven’t driven today and had some company arrive next door - a big camper backed in close beside us:( We think they were completely nuts as they had their engine or generator running for ages, drove out of their space and reversed back in, then moved three more times before deciding this wasn’t the place for them and left at 7 pm driving away in the dark – good luck to them finding somewhere to park that made them happy! So, another top day in the mountains, we think we prefer snowshoeing to skiing! It’s raining now as I write this who knows what tomorrow will bring? Photo Gallery Here Wednesday 8th February – travel – little walk – sunny periods but cold and windy. Woke to temperature of – 0.6 degrees with a light dusting of snow and, no surprise, strong winds! Will it ever stop blowing here! Would like to ski in the Pyrenees before heading south but the weather hasn’t been good enough to risk a trip up the mountain:( So we decided to head into Spain and come back here in a few weeks to ski when the weather might be better and the kids back at school. So after breakfast we packed up the van ready to go, then spotted a campervan toilet emptying place under the arches of the bridge into Mont Louis which was probably what the camper was fannying about with last night! I couldn’t believe the tap would be turned on in these freezing conditions so walked over to try it and it was on as I discovered as it completely soaked me coming out with great force and hitting a rail just below it! Still we managed to fill our van water tank and spare bottles:) Hilariously Mag also got completely soaked when the hose fell off the tap!! There is an intriguing little ski resort just down the road from Mont Louis called St. Pierre Dels Forcats which always seems to be under a cloud so we thought we would check it on the way out and what a top little resort it was. Campervan friendly with 22 runs for 29 Euros a day and it’s called ‘Sunlit Mountains’ in the brochure so they must get some good weather not like today, cloud covered mountain top and blowing a gale. There are seven resorts in the area worth a try so we will be back! We then headed to the border across a beautiful plateau surrounded by snowy topped mountains looking for a shop, harder than you would think!!! We reached Spain quickly and were waved through by several well-armed policemen and still hadn’t seen a supermarket but the diesel is loads cheaper so quickly filled up at 1.07 Euros a litre:) Then as we were off up the mountains with not much promise of a shop we returned to France and all the border police had disappeared, must have been siesta time! We managed to find a Carrefour tucked away in a back street in Bourg Madame and spent 70 Euros!!!! But we haven’t been shopping lately and it will last quite a while :) We strangely feel a bit out of our depth in Spain, we don’t know why as we have been to Spain loads of times but we battled on:) Our first decision was which way to go ??? we had to head to Barcelona to find the last ski resort this side of Sierra Nevada. There were apparently two options, one valley option through the tunnel or two. The high option to the Collada de Toses (1790m) which sounded more exciting so we took this route and what a brilliant road it was, following the valley high up in the mountains, was completely snow free and not a car in sight! The only problem was that the ski lifts were on the other side of the valley and we were not sure if we could get across? We stopped to take a picture again of Mag standing in the middle of the road and noticed the pistes were empty and the lifts not working! On reaching the Col, site of a large hotel we had the chance to turn right and were soon at the resorts. We found a lovely little campervan friendly resort called La Molina parked up in a large carpark sparsely filled with a few caravans and some hippy style vans along with pet dogs and a ginger cat:) We then found out what was wrong, because of the strong winds the higher lifts were closed and the mainly kids bused in were on the lower slopes having fun. We had a late lunch of ‘take the skin off your mouth’ French Bread and cheese before taking a walk through the resort to check it out. It was great to hear the different language, we are so used to French! We discovered that it was 38 Euros a day to ski and it should be sunny tomorrow. Windy but fingers crossed not so windy as today as we would like to give it try! We also spotted one of Mag’s favourite birds, a Crested Tit with his brilliant Mohican hair cut! Headed back to the van as the sun set over the mountains and the temperature dropped below zero. Watched a large group of kids sledging and having a great end to their day. Top tea of Escalope Cordon Bleus and Pommes Rissolees, with the diesel heater blasting out to keep us warm and a great Spanish radio station for entertainment:) Fingers crossed the weather’s kind to us tomorrow! |
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