Waking up to blue skies and epic views of Vignemale, climbing up the valley past two majestic isards - one chewing the leaves off a tree, the other bounding over rocks -, arriving at the Refuge des Oulettes de Gaube just in time to admire the north face of Vignemale and its glaciers before it was shrouded in the cloud that had followed us up the valley, chocolate brownies and coffee, marmots appearing everywhere all day long as if to show us the path - their little faces peeking out over rocks, their fluffy tails bounding behind them as they leapt about, their calls yip yip yipping out over the valley -, climbing rocky paths up into the cloud to the highest (and so far the coldest) part of the GR10, the Hourquette d'Ossoue (2734m) where we met anotheR British couple who took our photo and had pick axes and crampons for climbing up Vignemale tomorrow, scoffing cheese sarnies in the highest refuge in the Pyrenees and descending down steep, rocky paths, past a colony of mountain mice weaving in and out of their burrows, into a long gloomy valley which had a thick ceiling of cloud and many more marmots, over a dam and up again to a cloudy cold mountain side where we're huddling in our tent by a river hoping for sunshine...
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The vital statistics:
Total hiking time: 9h05
Peak: 2736m
Total ascent: 1171m
Total descent: 1012m
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