Category Archives: Link paths

Frontier crossing

View from near the Port de Marterat down the Ossèse valley
View from near the Port de Marterat down the Ossèse valley

If you are hampered by the possession of a car and want to go from the hamlet of Quanca in Catalonia to Ossèse in France, you have to drive 210km. It takes four hours.

Yet the two hamlets are only 10km apart: there are mountains in the way.

If, on the other hand, you have a pair of walking shoes, there are wonderful things to be seen.

Estany de Mariola with Certascan in the background
Estany de Mariola with Certascan in the background

I walked over the frontier this weekend, trying out a route I haven’t used before, via Fangassal and Mariola to the pass at the Port de Marterat where I stayed in the hut overnight. I spent the evening watching an isard grazing on the other side of the valley.

Forlorn cross half-way down the Ossèse valley. The path from the pass traverses the slope just above the arm of the cross before diving into the valley
Forlorn cross half-way down the Ossèse valley. The path from the pass traverses the slope just above the arm of the cross before diving into the valley

Next morning, I descended to Ossèse in France.

Passage between stone walls, shaded by coppiced trees just above Ossèse.
Passage between stone walls, shaded by coppiced trees just above Ossèse.

The route between Quanca and Ossèse is not just a pretty walk, it has a long history. It was one of the paths over the Pyrenees taken by colporteurs (peddlers) burdened with huge sacks of easily sold items, carrying also tales of the wider world to the isolated farming communities. Smugglers too found it useful.

In times of war, particularly during the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, the route was used by refugees, soldiers and airmen seeking freedom. Nowadays, the route is one leg of a 4-day cross-border walk, ‘The Mountains of Liberty’, evoking that era.

In times of peace, the route was used by migrants attracted by the possibilities of a better life over the border.

In the 21st century, the only people to frequent the area apart from walkers are the livestock farmers and their shepherds who spend four months here each summer.

Bordes de Graus: campsite, refuge and restaurant
Bordes de Graus: campsite, refuge and restaurant

Accommodation: Bordes de Graus (Tavascan, Catalonia) and L’Escolan (Ustou, France).

Making connections

Areou estive
Areou estive (above the Col de Pause on the French GR10)

On Google Earth, the mountain looks bald. Lower down it bristles with trees, but up here it looks like the bald pate of a man trying to hide his age: covered with fine white hairs brushed parallel. There are dozens of these white lines. Animal tracks?

On Catalan maps there is a real path in there somewhere but none of the lines on Google Earth looks important enough to be a path with a name. So, does the Camí de Aulà really exist? I email Fornet, the nearest hostel, but the reply is vague. I look on Wikiloc. Nobody has uploaded a record of having walked it. I ask in the local Facebook walking group. No luck there either. There’s nothing to do but take the risk.

Continue reading Making connections

Food for thought on the Way to Santiago de Compostela

Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, where the Camino de Santiago meets the Pyrenean Way GR10
Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France, where the Camino de Santiago meets the Pyrenean Way GR10 just before crossing the Pyrenees

My first is in walking, but under the sea.
My second is saintly, but not on the Way.
My third is edible, much prized and much prised open.
My whole is a riddle, the search for meaning.

How did scallops become associated with the Way of St James pilgrimage, to the extent of becoming a ubiquitous way mark?

Continue reading Food for thought on the Way to Santiago de Compostela

Pilgrims, golondrinas, refugees: crossing the Pyrenees

Fourteen routes over the Pyrenees

Before the 1970s only a handful of walkers had crossed the Pyrenees from E–W but hundreds of thousands had done it from N–S or S–N, and not just at the ends near the coast. Hannibal and Pompey; pilgrims on the Way of St James; Cathars; pedlars; shepherds; Napoleon’s armies; smugglers; Ramond, Russell, and other explorers; golondrinas; priests with Spanish religious statues; political refugees; the entire Spanish government with its paintings and gold; Jews and pilots; maquis; economic migrants; terrorists… All crossed the Pyrenees.

Paths linking GR10 and GR11
Paths linking GR10 and GR11 (click to enlarge)
Louis Ramond de Carbonnières
Louis Ramond de Carbonnières

[Note: some of these routes are not particularly recommended for walkers but are included for their historical interest. Each route includes practical information for those who wish to cross from the Senda Pirenaica (GR11) to the Pyrenean Way (GR10).]

Many of these crossings are now celebrated by official treks, mostly created in the last fifteen years, with interpretive panels and museums by way of explanation. These are known as Grand recorridos transfronterizos in Spanish and Sentiers de randonnée transfrontaliers in French.The Aragon government has just launched a project  [Spanish text] to develop them.

Continue reading Pilgrims, golondrinas, refugees: crossing the Pyrenees