Goodbye waymarks...hello HRP

One of the most impressive things we’ve seen so far is the destruction caused by avalanches. Every now and again we’ve been walking along the side of a hill and have come to a stripe down the mountain where all the trees are broken off at the stumps, while down at the bottom of the slope there’s a big pile of rocks and trees and sometimes still some snow. It’s hard to imagine seeing it happen - watching a band of trees, sometimes several hundred metres wide, being wiped out in a matter of seconds.

We passed one of these stripes of avalanche destruction yesterday morning on the way down to Parzan. My rules prohibit hitch-hiking but Klaas is more flexible, so while I walked 5km down the road he got a lift to the village and picked up some supplies. We then met up and began a long, hot and sweaty climb up to Paso de los Caballos (2,314m), before descending to a campsite at Biados.

The last two days have been much hotter than earlier days - no wind and very few clouds - so the climbs have been pretty tough. Above about 2,000m the temperature drops quite noticeably, especially if there’s a lot of snow, but climbing out of the valleys has been hard work.

Today’s climb was off-piste - we left the GR11 and had to make our own way up to Porte des Aygues Tortes (2,683m). While the GR10 and GR11 are waymarked, the HRP isn’t. Sometimes it follows another trail, so there may be markings, but sometimes there’s not even a path, as was the case today.

The climb was steep, sometimes on snow but mainly on scree. The descent though, was a north face, and was almost all snow. We lost quite a lot of time against the guidebook’s estimate, as it wasn’t expecting any snow at all, so despite what should have been a short day, we arrived at Refuge de la Soula after 7pm.

The refuge isn’t one of the most picturesque, as it seems to have been converted from part of an HEP station. The power station is literally a few metres away and, with a typically French regard for health and safety, they’ve left the door open!

Klaas and I are both feeling a bit knackered so we’re going to split tomorrow into two, giving ourselves two easier days. We’ve taken advice from various people and it sounds like the HRP is doable, so we made our choice when we left the GR11 earlier today. We’re now committed to the HRP, on the understanding that we’ll turn back if it gets too dangerous.