After a moderately
steep initial climb the path towards the refuge, which follows the
GR107 trail (a variant of the GR10 Pyrenenan Way), began to climb
much more gently, traversing north and then east around the
mountainside into the valley that sloped up towards the refuge
revealing beautiful views along the Haute Vallee de l'Ariege running
north back into France. The trail was mostly surrounded by trees
losing the last of their leaves and as we crunched along beneath
mostly grey skies it felt a lot like a Lake District hike, at least
until we looked up to see the much higher mountain tops around such
as Pic d'Auriol at 2695m to our left and in the distance Pic d'Etang
Faury at 2702m. On the other side of that rocky summit was the Refuged'en Beys that we had reached just 24 hours beforehand and now we
were approaching from the other side as we climbed through the Bois
Long forest, arriving at the Etang des Besines lake at 1938m after 2
½ hours of hiking.
However, for today
we arrived at the Refuge des Besinges content to just sit on the
wooden veranda and enjoy the incredible view back down towards the
Haute Vallee de l'Ariege and beyond to the rest of the distant Ariege
mountains lying to the west. The slightly dark skies and chilly
breeze gave the area a very wild atmosphere which we loved. Having
seen barely anyone on the trail all day it felt like we were much
further from civilisation than we really were and so we stayed to
enjoy that feeling for as long as we could before making the 3 hour
return hike in the soft evening light to the relative warmth and
comfort of our motorhome. As long as winter stayed away from the
mountains we decided we would stay to walk the hills with each
passing day feeling more precious than the last.
Walk
Information:
Motorhome Base -
Start/ End Point:
Time It Took Us: 5 hours
Level: Moderate/Hard
Map: Carte de Randonnees Cartes no.8 'Cedagne-Capcir'
1:50.000 (see below)
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