Day 18 – GTFO

I woke up around 5:30 and saw the moon, which was light, but not so light that it should ruin the stars, so I got out and took a couple shots.

The wind picked up a bit at night, the forecast was for wind, but not too bad until tomorrow.

By the time we packed up the wind was blowing the tent around quite a bit.

We started up the hike to Col de Mulets, a little over 400 meters (400 = 1,312 ft) from where we camped. As we got higher and closer to the pass the wind picked up even more and was blowing us around a bit, but not so strong that we had to turn back.

The winds the next day were supposed to almost double, weather reports in town weren’t so bad, but the high mountain forecast was for strong winds. We thought about camping one more night (that was the original plan) and walking out in the rain, but if the winds got much stronger we might be in trouble, and best case it would probably keep us up all night.

That made for a rather large hike back to Cauderets. After the first pass the landscape changed with red rocks to the north and a mix of green and gray in The Valley to the south. We realized there were some really interesting places just to the south, but sadly we would have to explore them another day.

We hiked high on the side of the mountain, then up a little to Col D’Arratille where the wind picked up again (passes naturally funnel wind, so they are often much windier).

The other side from there reminded me of parts of California, more golden in color and evergreens spotting the landscape more and more as it goes down. The wind died down dramatically when we got lower and it got much warmer, soon I was back to shorts and my short sleeve shirt.

We planned on catching a shuttle from Pont D’Espagne to Cauterets, but it didn’t show up, so it was time to hike a little more!

I didn’t expect to enjoy the hike down so much. The trail followed a River had had tons of amazing waterfalls!

An hour and a half later we were back in Cauterets, booking a hotel in Lourdes (because where else?) and driving out. The forecast for tomorrow has been upgraded to almost double the amount of rain as the last time we saw and the wind… well that was already clear. So it’s a hotel tonight and pizza!!

By the time we got to town the winds had picked up there as well, I can only imagine what it’s like in the mountains, I think we made a good choice.