and the sack who will not understand the advantage of sandals. All the
Pyrenean people, for the matter of that, most Spaniards, travel not in
leather boots but in cloth slippers with a sole made of twisted cord,
and to these the French give the name of sandals. But, as in the case
of the gourd, the name suddenly changes on the Spanish side. In France
you must ask for _Sandales_, in Spain for a pair of _Alpargatas_. The
advantage of these is a thing of which you can never convince a man the
first time he attempts these mountains, but he is sure enough of it at
the end of his first day. For some reason or other, the loose stones
and the pointed rocks of a mule path make travel upon foot intolerably
painful and difficult if it is too long pursued in ordinary boots. With
_Alpargatas_ on, you do not feel the fatigue of a track that would finish
you in 5 miles if you tried to do it in leather. And conversely, oddly
enough, a high road with a good surface soon becomes as intolerable in
Alpargatas as is a mule track in boots. There is nothing for it but to
leave your boots at the nearest town, if you propose to return to it, or
if you do not, to carry them with you and change from one footgear to the
other as you pass from the mountain to the road, and from the road to the
mountains.
Remember that, in Alpargatas, you will _always_ end the day with wet
feet. Let not that trouble you. They dry at once before the camp fire and
they do not shrink. The reason you will always have wet feet is that in
every few miles of hills you have to cross a marshy place or a stream.
But though it is easy to dry Alpargatas in a few minutes, it is advisable
to change socks at night, while those you have worn during the day dry
before the fire.
As to the blanket—No more than any of the inhabitants can you go through
these hills without a blanket. It is often of the greatest use in the
changes of weather during the day, it is absolutely necessary at night.
Were you to take it from England, you would certainly take one that
would be too heavy, or if you took a light one, one that would be too
cold. The people of the Pyrenees who have thought out these things slowly
for thousands of years, have ended with the right formula. They have a
thin, close, narrow blanket, which just protects a man and protects him
as much by its double fold with the air between as by its texture. Get
one of a neutral colour, a sort of dark slate grey is the commonest, and
pay from 30 to 50 francs for it.
With these five things, a pannikin from England, a gourd, a sack,
sandals, and a blanket, you are equipped. You cannot take less, you need
not take more, and if you take more you will certainly repent it.
I have said nothing about tents. The tent like twenty other luxuries
is taken for granted in England. I have heard of people roughing it in
various mountains who took with them not only a tent, but an india-rubber
bath, a Norwegian kitchen, and for all I know, collars as well. But many
a man who will have had the sense to get rid of his luxuries when he
begins scrambling, will be reluctant to give up the tent, for it seems
necessary to be at least dry. Now the arguments against having a tent
have always seemed to me final, so far at least as the Pyrenees were
concerned.
You are dealing here with a great expanse of mountain in which weather
is very variable, but in which you do not have snow or prolonged furious
weather during the months you are likely to travel in. This argument is
enforced by the peculiar structure of the mountains. Everywhere in the
Pyrenees you can find either rock shelter—and you find this much more
frequently than in any other part of the world I have ever seen—or dense
forests, or, on the bare upland sweeps of grass, those stone cabins of
the shepherds, upon the shelter of which the inhabitants largely depend.
These, of course, are not very near one to another, but they are always
marked on the 1/100,000 French map, under the title of _Cabanes_. The
owners, when they have owners, never mind one’s using them, and the only
drawback about them is that sometimes you make certain of using one
particularly far from mankind, and discover it to be all in ruins. One
way with another I have never known three nights upon the Pyrenees which
could not be passed in succession without a tent, if the rules which I
shall give for camping were properly observed; and that is the experience
also of those who have spent their whole lives in these mountains.
Next, let it be remarked that a tent is a great hindrance, it is either
very light—in which case it is always fairly useless—or it is heavy, in
which case there is an end to your free going. As will be seen later,
when I speak of the way of settling for the night, there need never be
occasion for such a shelter, which, moreover, in high winds is more
troublesome than an animal or a child.
If your equipment consist in no more than a gourd, pannikin, blanket,
sack, and sandals, what is your provision to be?
You must never make your provision for less than forty-eight hours, and
it is better to make it for sixty. However modest is your plan, always
allow for two nights on the mountain and for the better part of the third
day as well. Remember that you will start in the early morning from the
shelter of a roof, that you will therefore have a whole day before you
dependent upon your own resources, that if you are making anything of
an effort you will certainly camp the first night, but if the weather
goes wrong or you miss your way or come upon any accident, you may very
well have to spend the second night out, and if you do this, the chances
are in favour of a long tramp and scramble on the third day before you
reach human beings again. All this will be clearer to the reader when I
come to speak of the accidents of weather in these hills, but I may here
mention as an example of the truth of what I say that two companions and
myself were once held for exactly twenty-four hours in a space of not
much more than a square mile, and almost within earshot of a high road
and a village, and that yet it was merely a piece of good luck towards
evening—a fog lifting just at the right place for a few moments—that
saved us from spending a second night out of doors. In work of this kind
the chief part of strategy is to secure your retreat, but you cannot
make even one day’s excursion without your retreat involving at least
another day and perhaps two. Therefore, inconvenient though it be, you
must have ample provision.
The first element of this provision is bread, and you will do well to
allow a pound and half per man per day. Those are the rations of the
French army and they are wise ones. If each man of a party carries a
four-pound loaf, you have just enough, but not too much for accidents.
A man must have bread, he can do without meat, and at a pinch he can do
without wine, but I know by experience that he cannot depend upon any
form of concentrated food to take the place of the solid wheaten stuff
of Europe. Half a pound of bread and a pint of wine is a meal that will
carry one for miles, and nothing can take their place. For meat, you will
carry what the French call Saucisson, and the Spaniards, Salpichon. You
will soon hate it, even if you do not, as is most likely, hate it from
the bottom of your heart on the first day, but there is nothing else
so compact and useful. It is salt pig and garlic rolled into a tight
hard sausage which you may cut into thin slices with a knife, and it is
wonderfully sustaining. If you like to carry other meat do so, but you
can live on salpichon and it means less weight than meat in any other
form.
These two, bread and saucisson, are the essentials of provision, but
other provision hardly less essential should be added to them, and the
first of these extras is _Maggi_. Maggi is a sort of concentrated beef
essence, sold both in France and in England, and to be got anywhere in
the French towns, but you will do well to make quite certain by laying in
a good stock of it in some large town, such as Bordeaux or Toulouse or
Paris itself, on your way south: I have known the grocers of a Pyrenean
town to be out of it. The essence is packed in little oblong capsules
which you buy by the dozen, at about 2_d._ a capsule, and you will do
well to start with three or four dozen a man. They keep indefinitely,
they weigh next to nothing, and the great advantage of them will be
seen in what follows. You can, with two capsules to a quart of water,
make in a few moments a hot and comforting soup which quite doubles
the nourishment of your bread; with three capsules to a quart of water
you have a very strong soup, which will bring a man round a corner of
extreme fatigue. It is a food which can be prepared in a moment under
almost any conditions, and one which is invaluable when you find yourself
lost, especially if you are cut off by thick weather, or in any other way
exhausted. It may seem an insignificant detail to tell the reader how to
prepare so simple a meal, nevertheless I will do so. It took me a little
time to learn, and he may as well be saved the trouble. Each little
cylinder of extract is contained in two gelatine caps which fit together,
you pull these off, you drop the essence into a little water while it is
warming, but it will not melt of itself, you must crush it and mix it
thoroughly with the water, and then add more water, still stirring till
you have full measure. It needs no salt in the proportions I have given.
Further, you will do well to fill the little curved receptacle in the
pannikin with methylated spirit, and to carry an extra provision of this
in your sack. A pint is enough for many days, and very often you have
no occasion to use it at all, but you may be caught in some wet place,
or in a rocky piece where there is no wood, or in one way or another
have a difficulty in making a fire; and even where you have plenty of
wood, a drop or two of the methylated spirit makes you certain of the
fire catching even in wet weather; of that I shall speak when I come to
camping. By the way, take plenty of English matches and of two kinds,
fusees and others, and if you are carrying a sack and not a waterproof
knapsack, wrap your matches in a little square of india-rubber cloth, for
if there is one thing that imperils a man more than another, it is to be
caught in the hills without the means of making a fire.
As for brandy, the people of the hills themselves discourage its use; it
is, on the whole, best to have some with you, only you must not depend
upon it; it is quite honestly, under the circumstances of climbing, what
some foolish fanatics think it under all conditions, that is, a medicine.
If you take it when you do not need it it will fatigue you, especially
in high places. Such as you do take carry in a flask. The gourd, as I
have said, spoils it utterly.
Here then you have the rules for equipment and for provision, and I will
sum them up before continuing.
For equipment: Haversack or knapsack, a blanket, sandals, a gourd, a
pannikin fitted with spirit lamp and spirit vessel, four pounds of bread
for each man, a pound of sausage, a pint of methylated spirits, and
matches; to which you may add, if you will, a length of candle, and one
of those little mica lanterns which fold into the shape of a pocket-book,
and three or four dozen capsules of Maggi. Fill your gourd with wine
as full as it will hold, you will need it. So much for equipment and
provision.
As for the packing of it I have already spoken of this in connexion with
the knapsack. A few additional remarks may be of use. See that your bread
is always covered from the air; to wrap it in paper is enough for this,
and if it will fit into the sack so much the better. Work if possible
a broad band of cloth into the straps where they catch the shoulder,
keep the straps short so that the weight hangs high, carry the blanket
loosely over either shoulder: it gives far less trouble thus carried
than it does when it is rolled and tied over the chest. If you carry a
knapsack, however, roll the blanket tight upon the top of it, it will
then incommode you even less than when it is carried loosely. Wrap your
matches as I have said in a waterproof cloth (if you have no knapsack),
and wrap in the same the maps you need for each particular climb; forward
the rest by post to the town for which you are making if it is in France;
if it is in Spain, don’t, for they will not get there.
I had forgotten to mention that most useful thing, a pocket compass. Take
a large cheap one, and allow for the variation when you put it on your
map: but of using this and of several other little points I will speak
later. I have dealt with what regards equipment: let me now speak of
Camping.
Camping in the Pyrenees differs from camping under any other conditions
that I know. The structure of the range, its climate, and even the
political condition of the valleys, make it differ from camping in
Ireland or in the Vosges, or in those few parts of England where the
wealthy will allow plain men to indulge in this amusement. It is not the
same as camping in the Alps, in Savoy, or in the Apennines, or in the
Ardennes; and it is the particular conditions of camping in the Pyrenees
which made me say just now that one can do without a tent.
Though geologists are careful to describe the very varied structure of
the range, yet to the traveller one feature, peculiar to these among
all mountains, perpetually appears common in every part of it, and
that is the continual presence of overhanging rock. I can remember no
considerable stretch in any main valley, not any in a crossing between
two valleys, where you are not perpetually finding examples of this
formation. It is this upon which one must first depend for shelter. Next
to such overhanging rocks one must depend upon the great forests; lastly,
upon the cabanes. But before speaking of their various advantages rules
of time must be given, for upon the time of day chosen for the halt the
success of a camp will depend.
I am speaking of course throughout these notes of the warm weather
alone; that is, of the end of June, July, August, and the first part of
September. Seasons vary, and there are years when the whole of September
may be included. At the end of the season one may count, especially in
the eastern part of the Pyrenees, upon a sufficient succession of fine
nights to make camping possible; but if one comes upon a streak of bad
weather it will last, especially in the western part, for three or four
days, and it is better, if the people of the valley foresee such weather,
to let it go over before taking the heights. Thunderstorms and very
heavy rain may happen upon any night in these mountains. They are said
(I do not know upon what authority) to be commoner upon the French than
on the Spanish side. More dangerous than these, though less momentarily
annoying, are the mists which gather quite suddenly in the higher parts
of the range, and which as suddenly interfere with every form of travel.
It is absolutely necessary, unless one is quite certain of the finest
weather, to cross the col or port, in the route one has traced out
for the day, before that day is far advanced. The reason for this is
twofold; first, that wood for a camp fire is not usually to be found upon
the higher slopes, secondly that good water is not easily to be found
there. It is further necessary to choose the place for one’s camp an
hour or so before sunset, and it is wiser to make it even earlier. The
disappointments which I remember within my own experience in this matter
have nearly all proceeded from pushing on from a likely place discovered
in the afternoon; one so pushes on in the hopes of finding a likelier
spot before the end of the day. Such an extension of one’s journey is
nearly always ended in a rough, unsuitable camp, sometimes without a
fire, and under the most uncomfortable conditions. When therefore you
have found in the course of the afternoon, the shelter of good rock,
overhanging a dry place by the stream you are following, pitch upon it
and do not regret the hours you appear to lose.
When you have chosen the place for your camp your first act must be to
gather at once as much dry, _large_ wood as you can find. The local
customs in this matter are very liberal. Even if you are quite close to
a village, no one grudges you the use of wood, and your only possible
disturbance will come from the frontier guards if you are so foolish as
to choose their neighbourhood, which, by the way, can only be the case if
you encamp near one of the few chief crossings of the range. These may
ask you questions and make trouble, not for your gathering of wood, but
for their suspicion that you are smuggling.
The temptation to gather only small wood is strong. It always seems as
though the branch you have chosen will be large enough to last for some
hours. But a little experience of these fires will show you that nothing
small enough for you to drag will be too large for your purpose. The
eight hours or more during which you must feed the fire consume a great
deal of wood, and the keeping of the fire in depends upon having large
logs for its foundation. You will not, of course, be able to cut these
into the right length, you will have so to arrange them when the fire is
once well started that they burn through their middles. You can then,
later, shift into the centre of the flame the halves that fall aside. If
there is any breeze pile a few stones to windward of your hearth, for you
will have to sleep to leeward of the fire, and an arrangement of this
kind will break the force of the wind and prevent the smoke and flame
from coming too near you. If the wind is too strong, you must make your
fire and your camp under the lee of some great rock, or it will both burn
out in a very short time and make itself intolerable to those who depend
upon it for warmth. For a wind that rises in the middle of the night, you
have, of course, no remedy; short of heavy rain it is the worst accident
that can befall you. If you have enough wood make your fire of a crescent
shape with the hollow towards the wind. It is the warmest and the best
way. You must so arrange that in sleeping you lie with your feet towards
the fire, and your great provision of wood must be brought quite close
to hand otherwise, most certainly, you will not have the energy to feed
it in the few wakeful moments of the night. That wood should be somewhat
green or wet matters little if you have a great fire well started, but if
you let it get low while you sleep, it will be impossible to revive it,
and when the fire fails, there is an end to sleep for every one. It is
impossible to say what the effect of such a fire is by giving reasons for
it; it does not perhaps warm one so much as do something to the air which
makes sleep possible and easy without a shelter, and it is the universal
aid and solace of all the Pyrenean mountaineers, whom you will often find
in groups, woodcutters or shepherds, gathered round one of these great
blazes for the night.
The conditions of a good rock shelter, of a neighbouring stream and
plenty of wood, though common, are not universal, and if from the
structure of the hills and from the nature of the map you fear you will
not reach one, or if the greater part of the afternoon is passed without
your finding such a place, your next choice must be a spot in one of the
great woods that everywhere clothe the range. They are more common upon
the French than upon the Spanish slope. Here there is always cover from
the wind, for they are very dense, and even a partial cover from the
rain, but it is important to make your fire in a clearing, and luckily
there is nearly always a succession of open spaces between the forest
and the stream. With such a fire and with such an arrangement to leeward
of it the Pyrenean blanket with which you have provided yourself will be
ample covering for the night.
As for using cabanes, I have already said that there is no grudge felt
against you for doing so, but you must treat any man coming upon you in
such a shelter as though he were the owner, for the local shepherds will
certainly regard you as their guest, and will think they are doing you
the favour of a host. Moreover, your fire, if you make one here, must be
lit outside the building, though the local people who use the cabanes
most constantly, will often make it inside. On the whole the night is
more comfortably spent in the open than in one of these shelters, unless
one is caught by rain.
[Illustration]
The open sandy spaces such as are quite common by the side of the larger
streams may be used with safety. There are no places where a spate will
be so rapid as to endanger one, unless one choose, as a companion and
I were once compelled to choose, a cave almost cut off by the water.
The only places where it is essential that one should _not_ camp, are
the higher flats where wood is rare, and where the cold of the night is
exceptionally severe. It is a choice to which one is often compelled,
if one pushes on too long, after having miscalculated the fatigues and
duration of the climb; but it is an error which one always regrets.
A further recommendation is, _not to camp by the map_. The map may
look like that on p. 131, and one may say that one will follow up the
stream at one’s leisure. The reality may turn out a series of ascending
precipices, quite unassailable.
But it is a great temptation. A man may have known the Pyrenees and
experienced time and again the error of trusting to a map for a camping
site, but there is something so convincing about the print and the
colours that after years of experience one may commit the same folly
again. It was but this year that, trusting to the 1/100,000 map, I
planned to camp at the place where the Cacouette falls into the main
stream below Sainte Engrace. I did not know the spot; it seemed to come
at a convenient hour in the ascent of the mountains: I should be there
about 5 o’clock. There was wood marked, good water; it was on the lee
side of the wind that was then blowing from the south. When I came to
it the place was a sharp ledge of limestone higher than Cheddar cliffs,
dotted here and there with trees and affording between the wall of rock
and the water not three feet of ground. It was not to be approached from
above; it could not be reached from below. A more impossible place for
camping never was. I had the same experience some years ago on the Aston,
though that was before I knew the Pyrenees well. There a place was chosen
by my companion and myself for its mixture of wood and meadow upon the
map, there were cabanes and apparently plenty of good water; it was so
plain on the map, that one did not hurry to reach it before darkness;
but when we got there it was a marsh; no cabane appeared until daylight,
and there was even that very rare thing in the Pyrenees, doubtful water.
As for the wood that should have dotted the pasture, it turned out to be
tough little live bushes, and all green, that would neither cut nor burn.
There is one last and very grave danger of which I would warn the reader
in connexion with travel on foot in the Pyrenees, with a map and even
with a map and a compass. Without map or compass it is more than a
danger, it is a sort of necessary misfortune perpetually attending men,
and the gravity of it is proved by the fact that the local people who
use neither compass nor map when they go into a district with which they
are unacquainted, carefully ask the marks of the path and get themselves
accompanied, if they can, by someone who knows the country-side. This
danger may be called “Getting into the wrong valley.”
As one sits at home, one thinks of the scheme of mountain valleys too
simply. One thinks of the stream as coming down through a ravine with its
head waters appearing below a definite saddle or notch in the watershed.
This stream, let us say, is flowing north. One sees on the further side
another stream rising just on the other side of the notch and flowing
on through a simple valley, going to the south. The crossing of the
port between these valleys seems to depend upon no more than physical
endurance and fine weather. One goes up one stream to the saddle, crosses
the saddle, follows the other stream downhill, and so makes one’s passage
from France to Spain.
There are many passes of this simplicity, but there are many more that,
both between the lateral valleys and over the main range, present the
danger of which I speak, and which consists in a complexity at a summit
such that it is difficult in the extreme to know—even when one is certain
one has gone up the right part of the hither slope—what one should do on
the thither.
This danger of “getting into the wrong valley” cannot be seized without
illustration, and in the following rough sketches I give examples of this.
In the first example is a bit of country such as one very often gets in
these mountains with summits round about the 2600 metre line and the
last valleys under the ports somewhat above the 2000. I have marked with
hatching the contours below 2200 and in black the summits above 2600. The
main watershed I have indicated by a dotted line.