To help pay for mountain holidays, I was writing magazine features about the Pyrenees at a time when no-one else was doing so. One day I received a call from Walt Unsworth, editor at the time of Climber and Rambler, one of only two or three outdoors magazines on the market in the UK. He’d started a small guidebook-publishing business. Would I be interested in writing a guide to the Pyrenees? Having never looked at a guidebook before, let alone used one, I did some basic research to find out what sort of information was required for such a book. It seemed straightforward enough, and the prospect of becoming a published author did wonders for my ego. So I signed the contract and set to.
First published in 1978, Walks and Climbs in the Pyrenees is still in print, providing an endless set of excuses to revisit those enchanted mountains to walk, trek and climb as I gather material for new editions and updated reprints. And every visit is cause for celebration.
4
OUT OF THE SHADOWS INTO THE LIGHT
Previous visits had given a hint that the Pyrenees needed further examination, and I was eager to explore. Money was in short supply, and time had to be carefully balanced; my work as a youth hostel warden precluded any leave in the prime climbing season, so we went when we could and hoped for the best. At home in the early summer of 1973 wild flowers patterned the meadows, but in the Pyrenees winter had not yet run its course.
It had been a long and heavy winter in the mountains, and the beginning of June was too early to be there. Snow still lay deep at low altitudes, while avalanches peeled from slopes exposed to the sun. Keith Sweeting and I were both nervous, but tried to hide those nerves as we ploughed our way up long tongues of stone-pocked snow. Burdened by over-heavy rucksacks, every few paces one or other would break through the crust to wallow in the soft underlay or find boots submerged in a hidden stream. As a consequence our feet were soaked, our legs cold, our lungs raw from exertion. We were not fit.
It was late afternoon before we found the hut. Half-buried by avalanche debris, it took almost an hour to dig our way to the door and force entry. It was like an igloo inside. Snow had come down the chimney and spread across the stone floor, and although it only took four paces to cross the room, each step was deadly. Our shelter was an ice rink. One and a half candles, a damp box of matches, an empty wine bottle and a half packet of rice lay on a shelf beside the chimney breast; there were no mattresses on the bare boards of the two sleeping platforms, but it would be our home for the night.
We cooked and ate outside, sitting on the roof gazing up at the frontier ridge, at scars in the snow where rocks and other debris had scraped evil-looking runnels, wondering how safe it would be to cross that final slope in the morning. It looked prime avalanche terrain, but if we set out early it should be okay. Less than an hour, surely, and we would be on safe ground. ‘Easy,’ said Keith. ‘It’ll be a doddle.’
In the night came a muffled ‘whoompf’ and the door shook. I turned over and went back to sleep, but in the morning we had to climb out of the window as another avalanche (a small one, thankfully) had targeted the hut and blocked the door.
If we could, we would have tiptoed up and across the final snow slope that led to the Port de Venasque, but when you’re wearing big boots and have everything you’ll need for two weeks in the mountains on your back – two weeks’ worth of food, fuel for the cooker, climbing gear and tent – tiptoeing is not an option. But we trod as lightly as we could and kept a decent space between us, hearts racing, ears alert for the slightest hint that the slope was about to go. Despite the chill, sweat formed on my brow. My toes and fingers were frozen, but my palms were moist. Keith was uncharacteristically silent.
Deep in shadow I aimed for a narrow V of light that gave the only hint of where the pass should be. I’d read about that slim breach in the rocks, a classic crossing place from France to Spain where the winds howl and neither father waits for son nor son for father. Now we were about to cross it ourselves – if the slope would allow, that is. Each step gave a heartening crunch, but my boots barely dented the surface. Overhead rocks were glazed with ice. It could have been January instead of June, but my confidence grew.
Then the pass was revealed as a shimmer of sunlight glanced across crags that formed its western wall. The slope steepened, I kicked the toes of my boots into the crust, leaned on my axe and heaved myself out of the shadows of France and into the sunlight of Spain. From darkness into light; from winter into summer.
Across the head of the Ésera valley, the Maladeta massif bared its glaciers and snowfields, above one of which rose the pristine Pico de Aneto, highest of all Pyrenean summits. For this very moment I had dreamed all winter long.
At last! The Promised Land.
5
UP AND OVER
At 3404m Pico de Aneto (‘Nethou’ to the French) has the highest summit in the Pyrenees. First climbed in 1842, the standard route takes about five hours or so from the Renclusa refugio via the Aneto glacier, which these days is shrinking fast. In June 1973 it was somewhat different when we made a north to south traverse of the mountain. It’s just one of a number of ascents I’ve made in the Maladeta massif over the years, but it remains one of the most memorable.
Dawn broke as we topped the ridge separating the Maladeta’s glacier from that of Aneto, giving the perfect excuse to pause for a moment, to settle our breathing and watch as the sun climbed out of a distant hollow to cast its light on mountains filling every horizon. To the east the Forcanada shrugged its way out of a sea of cloud, and beyond that double-pronged peak one summit after another paid homage to the new day.
On the ridge wind-scuffed snow made for a cautious walk along the crest, where we skirted the insignificant Pico del Portillon Superior to reach the gap of the portillon itself. Peering into the gully that would lead onto the glacier, we discussed the need for crampons, but gambled on our ability to deal with the hard-packed snow-ice without them.
All the way from the foot of the gully to Aneto’s summit appeared to be an unmarked snowfield masking a glacier; and beyond a mound, which we took to be a pile of rocks, our ascent would take a direct route to the top of that graceful cone on a vast sheet of untrod powder whose pristine qualities both invited and excited us.
What’s more, we had the world to ourselves, for we’d seen no-one since arriving in the valley five days ago. The Renclusa refugio was still locked and shuttered, and the squalid annexe next door had received no visitors for weeks. It was too late for ski touring; too early for walkers and climbers. Unaware of our good fortune we’d arrived in a period of transition; we had winter’s purity above 1500m, but the first flowers bursting into life below the snowline where we’d left the tent. Summer was still some way off. Now on Aneto’s snow-covered glacier we had perfect conditions – and not a single boot print to follow.
As we prodded for unseen crevasses, the only sounds to disturb the morning were the squeak and scrunch of boots on the frozen crust – and our breathing. Despite the rising sun our breath steamed, but by the time we were halfway across the glacier the temperature was soaring and the soles of our boots balled with softening snow. The rhythm of ascent was interrupted now by the need to tap those balls free with our axes.
Above the Collado de Coronas the narrow ridge of the Pont de Mahomet brought us back to reality, for here the rocks were glazed with a winter’s worth of hard ice, and we were glad of the rope. Minutes later, and five hours after leaving the tent, I stood beside the summit cross and took a long, much-needed drink from my water bottle. Keith handed over some chocolate, and only then did we examine the vast array of peak, ridge and valley that fell away in every direction. So much was new to us; so
