done and the road reached the summit of the Somport, the lowest and the
most practicable of the high passes of the central mountains. But the
Spaniards still hung back, and it was not till the other year that the
road upon the Spanish side was completed. Now, however, one may not
only go all the way upon a high carriage road from Oloron to Saragossa
straight south across the hills, but one may find the whole way marked
with mile-stones as the Romans would have marked it, and saved at every
difficulty by engineering of which the Romans themselves would have been
proud. Once over the summit there is no resting place till one reaches
Canfranc, 6 or 7 miles by the windings of the road below one. After
Canfranc the valley of the Aragon, which one has been following, opens,
and the plain of Jaca lies before one bounded by its great ridge to the
southward, the Peña de Oroel.
If one would not go all that length of high-road (from Oloron to Jaca is
over 50 miles) there are upon the Spanish side two lateral diversions
which a man may take. The first is over the Col des Moines, the other
into and over the Canal Roya.
The first can be seen right before one at the summit of the pass; for
when one stands upon that summit one has, running eastward from the road,
a great open valley at the head of which is clearly distinguishable a
bare rocky ridge with a low saddle which is the Col des Moines. It is
perfectly easy upon either side, and upon the further side it shows one
the splendid and unexpected vision of the Pic du Midi standing up alone
beyond the little tarns at its feet: a double pyramid of steep rock upon
which the snow can hardly lie in tiny patches and whose main precipices
are dark, to the north, away from the sun.
The next lateral valley southward of the Col des Moines is that of the
Canal Roya, but one can only enter it after going down the main road for
quite a thousand feet. There a bridge will be seen spanning the Aragon
and a little doubtful path leading beyond eastward up the lateral valley.
It is two hours up that valley to its head by a path going first on the
right bank of the stream then crossing over to the left one. One thus
reaches by a continuous ascent the cirque or amphitheatre which bounds
it at the eastern extremity of the valley. Here there is a difficulty in
finding the easiest and lowest col. The map is doubtful and the details
upon the map are not sufficiently numerous. The Canal Roya is well worth
camping in and returning by to the main Spanish road if one is inclined
(and if one is, one would do well to camp near the wood upon the left
bank of the stream not quite half-way up the vale for there is no timber
further on). But if one does not camp and prefers to get over the col
into the valley of the Gallego the rule is to note a sharp peak which
stands exactly at the apex of the valley—it is the lowest of the peaks
around but very distinct, forming an isolated steeple due east of the
last springs of the stream. The way lies to the left or north of this
peak and just under its shoulder up a loose mass of fallen rocks on which
an eye practised in these things can discover from time to time a trace
not of a true path but at least of infrequent travel. Upon the far side
easy slopes of grass take one down in about an hour to the Sallent road.
Note that these two cols and the stretch from road to road and from inn
to inn can only with some peril be undertaken in one day from Urdos. In
fine weather and without accident the thing is simple enough, but when
you are baulked for an hour or two by the trail, or if you start a little
late, or if you are detained by mist you may very easily not manage the
passage from one of the great roads to the other, near as they look upon
the map.
With everything going well, carrying little weight and fresh, it is quite
three hours (and more like three and a half) from Urdos to the bridge
over the Aragon. It will be another two up the Canal Roya and two more
over its col and down the other side to the high road, and even from that
point on the high road, if you follow the road only, there are two more
hours before you reach Sallent. It is a very heavy day of quite 30 miles
with two cols, one of 5000 feet, the other of 6500 feet, to be taken on
the way, and it is foolish to undertake either the Col des Moines or the
Canal Roya from Urdos without allowing for the chance of one night at
least upon the mountain.
The second pair of valleys, that of the Gallego on the Spanish side, and
the Gave d’Ossau on the French side, are linked together by two very easy
passes, and one difficult one of which I shall speak in a moment.
The old port, now called “Port Vieux de Sallent,” or the “Puerta Vieja,”
is easy enough, though it went over a higher part of the mountain than
the new pass just next door to it. I say it is _higher_ than the pass now
used, and this contrast is not infrequently found in the Pyrenees, some
feature or other in the topography of the ridge making it more convenient
for a native to cross by a slightly higher saddle than by some lower one
close by. For instance, the Somport itself is somewhat higher than a
quite unknown gap four miles to the west of it, but this lower gap was
never used because it led into a Spanish valley of a difficult and most
isolated kind.
In the case of the two passes from the Val d’Ossau into Spain, the
obstacle which prevented the lower pass being used until quite lately,
was a great mass of rock overhanging the sources of the Gave d’Ossau, in
the highest part of the valley. When the new highway was made, this rock
was blasted and cut so as to take the road round it, and thus the low
pass beyond, called Pourtalet, was utilized. It is below 6000 feet and
exactly 1000 feet lower than the old Port de Sallent. But even nowadays,
if you are on foot you will do well to cross by the old port, high as it
is, for it saves time.
While I am on the subject I must warn the reader that the 1/100,000
map does not accurately convey the shape of the last two miles of the
road upon the French side, and the line of road mere guesswork upon the
Spanish, though the shape of the mountains is accurately given.
This pair of valleys is remarkable for another feature upon the French
and upon the Spanish slopes: their wildness. Let me speak first of the
French. The French valley, the Val d’Ossau, is one of the wildest and
most deserted in the Pyrenees, and also it is the one most densely
clothed with forests. The reason of this is that there is less flat
ground at the foot of it than in any other. Nowhere does it expand into
even a narrow circus, and about Laruns, where it debouches upon the
lowlands, and the summit of the pass into Spain, a distance of perhaps
17 miles, there is but one large village, close to the bottom of the
valley, and that owes its existence to Thermal Springs; it is called Eaux
Chaudes—a dismal place, squeezed in between the torrent and the cliff,
dirty, uncomfortable, and sad. Higher up, however, a tiny hamlet, the
humblest and most remote in the world, one would think, has of recent
years taken on some little importance through travel; this is the hamlet
of Gabas, which may be said to consist in three inns, a ruinous chapel,
most pathetic, and a customs station. Of the excellent inn at Gabas, I
will speak elsewhere.
This valley of the Ossau is the base for two districts, both of which are
very Pyrenean, and on either of which a man may spend a day or a month of
lonely pleasure. One is the steep and very fine valley of the Sousquéou,
the other is the short and extremely steep torrent bed which leads up to
the foot of the Pic du Midi.
This mountain dominates all this section of the Pyrenees. The approach
to it by the Col des Moines I have already mentioned; this ascent by the
short valley from Gabas, through the woods, is better, because you come
right up on to the mountain suddenly from the depth of a vast forest, and
you feel its isolation.
I know of no hill which seems more to deserve a name or to possess a
personality. Round its base there is matter for camping for days or for
weeks, good water, lakes to fish in, shelter, both of rocks and of trees,
human succour not too far off (Gabas is not three miles as the crow flies
from the summit of the mountain), and a complete independence.
The Sousquéou is a less human excursion, though it has a very fine
lake at the head of it. The communication with men is steeper and more
difficult than from the district surrounding the Pic du Midi, and, as I
know from experience, it is not difficult to lose one’s way. Moreover,
the exits from the upper end of this valley are not easy, and it is
bounded on either side by the most savage cliffs in the whole chain.
Should it be necessary to escape from this ravine by any path but that
which leads down on to the high road near Gabas, you have no choice but
the high and steep Col d’Arrius, which brings you down into the upper
valley of the Gave d’Ossau, or on to the very high and most unpleasant
Col de Sobe, which gets you into one of the most difficult parts of the
Spanish side near the Peña Forata and so down to the Gallego. Its very
remoteness, however, and its partial changes, may attract one kind of
walker to the Sousquéou, but if he attempts it, let him go with at least
three days’ provisions. There are huts in the lower part of the valley,
but there is no very good camping ground near the lake I believe, save
on the side of the wood to the north. It is a lonely place, not without
horrors, and is perhaps haunted; the shape of the hills around is very
terrible.
The Spanish side of all this is more simply described, the new high
road runs down 8 or 9 miles to Sallent, which can be turned into 5 or
6 miles by taking the old mule track that cuts off the windings of the
graded road. The river Gallego runs below and increases as it goes. To
the right or westward of the valley there is nothing in particular to
be done, there is but one place where you can conveniently cross over
into the valley of the Aragon, which is the Canal Roya I have already
described; south of that crossing the flank of the mountain lies bare and
open affording neither camping ground nor interest. On the left are the
curious serrated precipices of the Peña Forata, where climbing makes but
a day’s amusement, but where also there is no opportunity for camping,
and once Sallent is reached, though the “valley of Limpid Water” which
runs north of it is fine enough, there is little to be done but to go
on to Panticosa. There is a path over the very high ridge of the Pic
d’Enfer, and there is a main carriage road which goes round the flanks of
that mountain.
All this part the valley of the Gallego is bounded by some of the highest
and most abrupt peaks in the chain, and (as I shall presently describe)
another district, meriting another type of description and travel, lies
to the eastward, and constitutes those new fortresses of the hills, the
roots of old Sobrarbe, where Christendom first began to hold out against
Islam, and whence the men of Aragon could securely push southward when
the advance to the Reconquest began.
[Illustration: THE FOUR VALLEYS]
III. SOBRARBE
[Illustration]
When one says Sobrarbe one means all that eastern and larger part of the
original valleys of Aragon which lie between (and do not include) the
valley of the Gallego and the valley of the Noguera Ribagorzana, that
is, the valley of Broto (which is that of the river Ara), the valley of
the river Cinca and the valley of the river Esera; for, with central
ramifications, these three make up Sobrarbe.
That part of it of which I shall here speak, the part right up against
the frontier ridge, is included between the big lump of mountains which
surrounds Panticosa (of which the Vignemale is the most conspicuous) and
the other big lump of peaks which is called the Maladetta group.
It has three towns corresponding to its three valleys, Torla in the Broto
upon the Ara, Bielsa upon the Cinca, Venasque upon the Esera.
The Cinca, however, receives, right up at its sources, an affluent longer
and more important than itself, called the Cinqueta, and on this stream
is a group of villages, none of them important enough to be called a
town, but standing so close together as to make a considerable centre of
habitation.
But for these towns, the group of villages I have mentioned and one or
two tiny hamlets, these Spanish valleys are wholly deserted, and they
form by far the most rugged and difficult district of all the Pyrenees.
They also hold the highest peaks of the mountains; the culminating Nethou
Peak of the Maladetta group, just upon the eastern edge of the district
(11,168 feet); the Posets (11,047), the Mont Perdu (10,994), the Pic
d’Enfer (10,109), the Vignemale (10,820) all stand here. Most of the
high peaks are in Spain, but it is another feature of the district that
the frontier ridge is higher here than in any other part, and is also
more continuous. The summit of the Vignemale forms part of it, and the
notches by which it may be traversed in these 40 to 50 miles lie but very
little below the surrounding peaks. Only 3 of the passes miss the 8000
foot line. The Port du Venasque, at the extreme eastern end opposite the
Maladetta, is 7930 feet in height; the Port de Gavarnie at the extreme
western end is 7481. These two form the chief thoroughfares over this
high and difficult bit; that of Gavarnie, upon the French side, is being
prepared for wheeled traffic. The third, the Port de Pinède, also misses
the 8000 foot line, but only misses it by 25 feet. All the other passes
are but slight depressions in this barrier of cliff. The Tillon or rather
the passage to the side of it, is little under 10,000 feet, the Pla Laube
is over 8000, so is the Marcadou, so is the better known and more used
pass of Bielsa, while the Port d’Oo is 9846, and the Portillon d’O is
9987.
The impression conveyed by this long line, the only line in the Pyrenees
where even small glaciers may be found, is of an impassable sheer height,
just notched enough at one point on the west to admit a painful scramble
into the valley of the Gave d’Pau and on the east to admit one into the
Valley of the Lys (into the basin of the Adour, that is) at one end, and
into the basin of Garonne at the other.
A journey through Sobrarbe can be undertaken either from Sallent and
Panticosa or from Gavarnie, and in either case your exploration of
high Sobrarbe begins at the hamlet of Bujaruelo, which the French call
Boucharo.
How to reach Bujaruelo from Gavarnie I shall describe later: for the
moment I propose a start on the Spanish side.
If you start from the Spanish side at Panticosa, a plain path takes you
up the valley of the Caldares until you are right under the frontier
ridge. There the path bifurcates; you take the right-hand branch along
the chain of lakes that lies just under the wall of the main ridge, and
you climb slowly up to the path at the head of it. The whole climb
from Panticosa to this pass is 3040 feet, and it will take you from
early morning until noon. Or, if you will start before a summer dawn, at
any rate until the heat of the morning. For though it looks so short a
distance on the map, and though there is no difficult passage, it is very
hard going. The reason I mention this matter of hours is that when you
have got down the other side into the valley of the Ara, you are still
8 miles by the mule path from Bujaruelo, and though it is all downhill,
you will hardly do these 8 miles under two hours and a half; however
early you start, therefore, the back of the day is likely to be broken by
the time you come to Bujaruelo. Once there a new difficulty arises; for
Bujaruelo is not a pleasant place to sleep in. I have not myself slept
there, but the verdict is universal. Though you are coming from a Spanish
town the Customs may bother you at this hamlet because they cannot tell
but that you have come over some one of the high passages from France,
such as the Pla Laube up the valley. At any rate, unless you are going
to camp out you must push on to _Torla_, 5 miles on down the valley,
and you will pass through a great gorge on your way. Now at Torla the
hospitality, though large and vague, is good enough.
If, however, you are taking the Upper Sobrarbe with the idea of camping,
you must not go on to Torla, but you must do as follows. Just at the far
end of the gorge of which I have spoken the path crosses the river Ara
by a bridge called the Bridge of the Men of Navarre. There you will see
a path leaving yours to the left, and zigzagging up the mountain side
eastward. This is the one you must take. It climbs 600 feet, gets you
round the cascade which here pours into the Ara from a lateral valley,
and finally puts you on to the level floor of that lateral valley: it
is called the valley of Arazas. Here there is excellent camping ground
everywhere, and it will be high time to look for a camp by the time you
are well upon the floor of that gorge; you may have to go up some little
way to find wood, but much of this valley in its higher part is clothed
with forests. The next day you must, as best you can, force your way
to Bielsa, and unless the weather is fine you may very possibly have to
sleep another night upon the mountain.
The trouble of this difficult bit is the great height of the lateral
ridges. At the end of this fine valley of Arazas, which curves slowly up
northward as you go, is the huge mass of the Mont Perdu, and you cannot
get out of the valley without going over the shoulder of it. In order
to do this proceed as follows, and go along the stream until the path
crosses over from the northern to the southern bank, at a place where
the cliffs on either side come very close to the water. The path goes
along under and partially upon the face of these cliffs in a perilous
sort of way, until it comes to a lateral streamlet pouring right down the
side of the terminal mountain. This lateral streamlet you must be sure
to recognize, for upon your recognizing it depends the success of your
adventure; and you may know it thus: The place where your path strikes
it, is exactly 1000 yards from the place where you crossed the main
stream. When you come to this lateral streamlet you will see, or should
see, a transverse path running very nearly due east and west; and up that
in an eastward direction, immediately above you, a distance of 800 yards,
upon the shoulder of the great mountain is the depression for which the
path makes. It is called the _Col de Gaulis_.
For all of this by the way you will do well to consult Schrader the whole
time. What the going is like on the further side of this col I cannot
tell for I have never come down it, but I know that your way descends
right by a very short and steep gully in which a torrent makes straight
for the valley beneath, and I know that when you have made that valley
your troubles are over.
You fall through a descent of just under 2000 feet in a distance of
less than a mile as the crow flies. You must therefore be prepared for
a very steep bit of work. Once in the valley, however, everything is
straightforward. On reaching the main stream of this new valley (which
runs north and south) you turn to the right, southward, and follow its
right bank between it and the cliff; you cross a rivulet flowing from a
deep lateral ravine about a mile further on, and less than half a mile
further again see a new path leaving your path and going to your left,
crossing over the valley and its stream, and making up a gulley which
comes down facing you from the opposing heights. Take this new path up
this gulley (the path runs everywhere to the _south_ of the water), and
you will find yourself after a climb of somewhat over a 1000 feet on the
Col d’Escuain. Thence the way is perfectly clear, running due south-east
for 5 miles, just above the edge of the cliffs of the gorge of Escuain,
until you reach the village of Escuain perched above that ravine.
Whatever efforts you may have made, and however early you may have
started, you will hardly have reached human beings again at this place
until, as at Bujaruelo the day before, the back of the day is broken.
Nevertheless, unless you are to camp out again upon the mountain, you
must try and push on to Bielsa. It is more than 10 miles, however much
you cut off the windings of the path, which takes you past the chapel of
San Pablo, leaving the village of Rivella on the left up the mountain
side, then across a steep cliff down to the profound gorge of the Cinca;
from there an unmistakable road goes through Salinas de Sin and follows
straight on up the valley to Bielsa just 4 miles further on.
If you can do that in one day you will have done well.
There is another and shorter crossing, which, though it is invariably
used by the mountaineers, I have not described because most people unused
to the Pyrenees would shirk it. When you have come down from the Col de
Gaulis into the valley below, if instead of going southward to the right
you go northward to the left, crossing the stream, and climbing up on the
further side of it, the path takes you at last to a very high col, called
in Spanish the Col of Anisclo, but in French, the Col of Anicle. This
col is not far short of 9000 feet high, and it is particularly painful
to have to attempt it just after the difficult business of the Col de
Gaulis. It means two ports within a few hours of each other, the second
one 3000 feet above the valley, and what that is in the way of fatigue,
a man must go through in order to know. Moreover, the descent on the far
side from the Col of Anisclo is exceedingly steep.
However, if you do this short cut you have the advantage of finding
yourself at once in the main valley of the Cinca and, when once you are
on the banks of that river, you are not more than 8 miles or so from
Bielsa by a good path leading all the way down the stream on the left
bank. You save in this way quite 6 miles, and reduce your whole journey
from the mouth of the valley of Arazas to Bielsa to a little less than 20
miles.
The distance you have to go before you come to human beings is much
the same by either track. Escuain is just about as far from the Col de
Gaulis, as is Las Cortez, the first hamlet in the Cinca valley. Again, by
this shorter way you miss the gorge of the Escuain, but you see the huge
cliffs of Pinède, which are perhaps the finest wall in the Pyrenees with
their summits along the crest of 9000 feet, 5000 feet or more above the
stream at their feet: it is the edge of this ridge of cliff which must
be crossed at the Col of Anisclo. Either way therefore is as fine and
either as deserted as the other. But the second much shorter and far more
painful.
Before I leave this passage between the first and second of the Sobrarbe
valleys—between the valley of Broto, that is (as they call the valley of
the river Ara) and the valley of the Cinca—a few notes on the road should
be added.
First, I have said that Torla, Bujaruelo (Boucharo) may be made from
Gavarnie as well as from Panticosa. This is so; and if you undertake the
exploration of Sobrarbe from Gavarnie, it is a much easier business to
get to Bujaruelo from the French hamlet, than it is to get to it from
Panticosa.
The excellent road from Gavarnie to the top of the port is a very small
matter, and from there down into Bujaruelo is an easy descent of three
miles. If you start from Gavarnie, therefore, in the early morning, you
can with an effort and in good weather go the whole length of the Val
d’Arazas, over the Col de Gaulis, and the Col of Anisclo and sleep in
Bielsa that same night, or you can, taking it more easily, make a camp at
the head of the Val d’Arazas, or you can break your journey in the valley
between the two Cols of Gaulis and Anisclo, camping there for the night;
I am told the camping ground in this gorge is not very good, otherwise
that would be the ideal place to break your journey.