Phone news from exasperated campers today....
Saturday 28th May
After a nice slow ease into the day, they finally set off for a long walk and a LOT OF up around 10am. We're talking a 2450 metre ascent here. They got up to the saddle of the hill around 3pm-ish, and decided to make camp early and make the assault over the top early the next morning rather than on tired legs.
Cue helpful mountain runner here, who appeared as if from no-where, had a quick chat, then proceeded to the top - only to come back down again an hour later, to report the summit totally unpassable due to heavy snow.
Bother. (In it's defence the GR10 walk book did say theis hill was sometimes inaccessible until early June after a hard winter - but our walkers are optomists, and had their fingers crossed when approaching this point)
so...
Sunday 29th June
Sadly, all the huge hill so manfully ascended yesterday had to be backtracked. They retraced their steps back to the little spa village of Eaux-Bonne, where they consoled themselves with a delicious late lunch.
(for the gourmands amongst us, for 11euros they had a starter of mixed charcuterie; followed by steak/frites; with ice cream and or tarte a la maison plus coffee. Not all bad then!)
They then set off on a 7 k road walk to skirt the hill which had proved impassable today - and hope to spend the night camping in Gourettes.
Which is bang on schedule - but just a little gruelling as they have lost their 1 1/2 days ahead of schedule safetly time they had fought to gain over the last 2 weeks.
Ah well....they like a challenge!
Saturday 28th May
After a nice slow ease into the day, they finally set off for a long walk and a LOT OF up around 10am. We're talking a 2450 metre ascent here. They got up to the saddle of the hill around 3pm-ish, and decided to make camp early and make the assault over the top early the next morning rather than on tired legs.
Cue helpful mountain runner here, who appeared as if from no-where, had a quick chat, then proceeded to the top - only to come back down again an hour later, to report the summit totally unpassable due to heavy snow.
Bother. (In it's defence the GR10 walk book did say theis hill was sometimes inaccessible until early June after a hard winter - but our walkers are optomists, and had their fingers crossed when approaching this point)
so...
Sunday 29th June
Sadly, all the huge hill so manfully ascended yesterday had to be backtracked. They retraced their steps back to the little spa village of Eaux-Bonne, where they consoled themselves with a delicious late lunch.
(for the gourmands amongst us, for 11euros they had a starter of mixed charcuterie; followed by steak/frites; with ice cream and or tarte a la maison plus coffee. Not all bad then!)
They then set off on a 7 k road walk to skirt the hill which had proved impassable today - and hope to spend the night camping in Gourettes.
Which is bang on schedule - but just a little gruelling as they have lost their 1 1/2 days ahead of schedule safetly time they had fought to gain over the last 2 weeks.
Ah well....they like a challenge!
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