Last week MountainBug ran two levels of walking holiday – our Taster level, Valleys and Views, and then two levels up, our Discoverer- Lakes, Ridges & Cirques.
Our guests had a week of glorious sunshine, which led to a lot of rests in the warmth and even a chilly lake-dip in the Neouvielle Nature Reserve.
While the Taster group enjoyed three days of gentle mountain walking with two days centred around sight-seeing (the weekly regional market at Argeles-Gazost and the Pic du Midi Observatory), our Discoverer guest enjoyed taking the high road for 5 days, climbing peaks, visiting mountain lakes, and reaching over 2,500m most days.
We’re not sure who had the best wildlife spot of the week. The Discoverers saw eagles, vultures and marmots but the Taster group saw a snake swimming through a lake with a live frog in its mouth…you decide who wins!
Photos from this week’s Discoverer – Lakes, Ridges & Cirques
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| Balcony walk, Cirque de Gavarnie |
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| Ramondia, Cirque de Gavarnie |
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| A refreshing dip with the Cirque de Gavarnie behind |
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| Another view of the balcony walk |
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| Gentians at the Cirque |
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| Cirque de Troumouse |
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| Bouldering fun in the Cirque de Troumouse |
Photos from this week’s Taster- Valleys and Views
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| A refreshment break in the small village of Viella |
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| The enchanting river at Gavarmie |
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| Off the main drag heading to the meadows, Cirque de Gavarnie |
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| Dragonfly watching – Lac D’Estaing, Val D’Azun |
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| A school kite festival, Lac D’Estaing |
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| View from Plateau Lumiere to Sers, Viey and Luz |
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| Some of the flowers at Plateau Lumiere |
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| Walking across Plateau Lumiere |
This week saw our Discoverer level guests do a three-day mini trek into the Neouvielle Lake District, guided by MountainBug Director Rob.
We were also delighted that our Explorer level guests were up for a challenge and joined the others on their second night in a refuge. Our chalet hosts, Vic and Geoff, and MountainBug Director, Martin, went along too. Martin is training for his International Mountain Leader, so the group benefited from having an experienced qualified guide (Rob) and a trainee.
The snow is also receding, allowing everyone to climb up high in the Cirque du Troumouse yesterday, where the trumpet gentians are now very much in bloom.
Today our Explorer level guests did a relaxing 5 hour walk through the villages in our valley (most of it is downhill – easy!) while our Discoverer level group went up the Pic du Viscos.
All in all, an adventure filled week with most of the MountainBug team getting out there too.
The clear blue skies and low winds meant that today’s Taster-Valleys and Views trip to the Pic du Midi observatory, at 2877 metres, was exceptional.
We went via the Col du Tourmalet, stopping for a look at the Col, made famous by the Tour de France, and being awed at the twisty route up to it the cyclists take.
We then headed down to La Mongie (Bareges-La Mongie form the Grand Tourmalet ski resort, the largest in the Pyrenees) to get the breath-taking cable car up to the Observatory.
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| View towards Gavarnie and Spain
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| We like to give our guests coffee with a view… |
The Observatory was slowly constructed over 120 years. It has been used as an observatory for the last 60 years. In the 1960s, it was observations from the Pic du Midi that helped NASA formulate its moon landings. Today it still plays an integral role in world-wide space observation, with parallel observations taking place; the sun and the solar system. It especially focuses on the moon, the celestial objects, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter.
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| The Pic du Midi observatory |
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| Part of one of the original telescopes |
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| View towards the Col du Tourmalet and Valle de Bareges |
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| Cable car up to the Pic du Midi |
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| Locals to the Col du Tourmalet |
The Pyrenees rewarded us with a beautiful day today at the Cirque du Gavarnie. The meadows are also starting to fill with flowers. Here are a selection of today’s photos.
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| Approach to the Cirque |
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| The Cirque du Gavarnie as seen across the meadows |
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| Gentian |
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| The sun glinting off the European Troll flower |
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| Purple orchid showing off its spotted leaves |
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| geranium |
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| Butterfly orchid |
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| Pyrenean Hyacinth |
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| the way back, over the meadows |
One of our guests has found this company which is offering direct flights from Manchester to Lourdes over the summer. This makes it a lot easier to reach us from the north of England/Wales and from Scotland.
Due to its popularity, we have added two new dates for our Explorer – Valleys, Villages and Cirques guided walking holiday. The new dates are: 16-23 June and 22-29 September.
If you would like to join us on one of these holidays, please contact us via our easy to use web form or call us on 00 33 (0)5 62 92 16 39.
Spring is coming to the Pyrenees. We’ve been getting out and about checking out our walks and itineraries before the season begins (changes to paths, roads etc) and maybe buying the odd bit of cheese from the farmer’s market….the photos speak for themselves.
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| 15 May – Driving down from Bareges to Luz-St Saveur |
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| Last week – view of Sers from Betpouey (Bareges is up the valley, to the right) |
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| Viey from the path between Betpouey and Viella |
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| Griffon Vultures circling the Argeles market |
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| Lac D’Estaing, looking towards the Spanish border |
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| Spring gentians, Lac D’Estaing, Val D’Azun |
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| Local traffic jam on our way back from Lac D’Estaing |
We’ve just emailed out our first newsletter as “new” MountainBug.
For those of you who aren’t on the email list (taken from past clients), you can read the it here. To get the next newsletter straight to your inbox, please subscribe to it via our contact us page, with the title “Subscribe to newsletter”. We only do two a year and guard fiercely all email addresses so you won’t get spammed forever.
We’ve also got a QR code for the MountainBug Spring Newsletter. If you have a QR code reader on your smart phone and scan this code in, it will take you directly to the newsletter too.
The ski resort has closed and we have all gone on our holidays. We all decided to visit the motherland, the UK, just as the heavens opened. It has not stopped raining for three weeks. We are all missing our mountains!
In the meantime, we have written two articles you might find interesting.
The first is about activity holidays in the Pyrenees. It’s full of ideas, advice and tips.
The other is about walking and hiking in the High Pyrenees and includes some of our favourite places to walk and hike in it.
Special offer
If you book and pay your deposit for a winter 2012-13 holiday before May 15, you will get it at winter 2011-12 prices.
The sun is shining and spring is starting to arrive down the valley. As you drive up to Bareges, there are lambs and baby goats in fields that are slowly turning green. The first flowers are starting to appear although it won’t be until June that the mountains will burst with colour and scent.
As you pass through Bareges and towards the ski resort, there’s more signs of snow…then you reach the resort and it is business as usual! The pistes are still open, with a good covering of snow, over a compacted layer. The best time of day is from 10ish to 15.00ish when the night’s icy top layer has melted and the groomed snow is soft. Even better – the pistes are EMPTY! You can ski for hours and barely see anyone else. This combined with the lovely weather makes Easter Pyrenean skiing really enjoyable.
Our ski tourers this week have been heading to over 2000m, where there is still plenty of snow (about 60cm in places). The high peaks will have snow for a few more weeks, making it a good time for touring and snow-shoeing. Martin, one of our Directors, snow-shoed up to 2100m last week and was walking through 2 foot of snow. The hotel’s chef, Stefan, has been out ski-touring every day, practising for our Chamonix-Mont Blanc trip in April, which has a few spaces left still.
The ski resort is open for another two weeks and we have more skiers and ski-tourers arriving tomorrow, taking advantage of the longer days and the empty mountains.
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| View from the top station of Barege’s disused funicular |
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| Flowers poking through in the sunny spots of the valley |
