This is more like it...

After days of miserable weather in the rolling foothills of the Pyrenees, the last couple of days have finally provided some proper mountains and some fantastic views. You’ll have to take my word for it I’m afraid as the phone charge situation is still bad, but I’ll upload some photos when I get to a PC that can read my camera’s memory card.

Tuesday began with an amazing climb of Pic d’Orhy from Iraty. The weather began warm and clear, but there were clouds building near the mountain and by the time I started climbing I was back in familiar surroundings - thick fog. After about 30 minutes climbing up a steep slope wearing hat and gloves, I suddenly found myself staring over the edge of a huge cliff, with unlimited visibility. Behind me there was a wall of fog and visibility of under 30m, but in front there were mountains and valleys stretching to the horizon.

Unfortunately my route turned 90 degree left and up a ridge, back into the fog. I began climbing on the left of the ridge, but as the ridge got sharper I noticed the right side was clear, so swapped over. The ridge got narrower and narrower until I came to a complete stop, faced with the sharpest ridge I’ve ever seen. On the left was a steep drop into the fog, and on the right a sheer cliff, hundreds of metres high.

I sat down to try and work out how to cross the ridge, but eventually took a GPS position and checked the guide - it turned out that 50m back there was a path that ran 20m off the ridge down in the fog, so I gratefully retraced my steps and took that. On the way I noticed a plaque to someone who obviously wasn’t so lucky.

After the adreneline of the ridge I was exhausted, so stopped for some lunch, but the rest of the climb didn’t disappoint. By the time I reached the summit I was above the clouds and the views were phenomenal. I’ve begun remembering why I’m doing this…

Today’s route began with a hot walk across some mountain pastures, passed through a forest then ended up in an incredible limestone wilderness, where I felt totally cut off from civilisation. The route up to Col d’Anaye was remarkable, an almost lunar landscape made up almost entirely of rock.

I crossed my first few snowfields of the trip during today - the initial ones weren’t big enough to warrant crampons but over the col I found myself descending quite a steep one, so whipped them out for the first time.

I also started seeing some interesting wildlife now that I’m a bit more cut off from the normal world. There have been eagles around for a few days, but today I saw the first isard and a marmotte(-ger?). Loads of lizards too.