Day 5: Col de Lacho to Saint-Etienne-de-Baïgorry

Waking up in blustery clouds, climbing uphill to the crête d'Iparla, glimpsing intermittent views as the clouds parted and joined, vultures catching an early morning updraft, vultures lurking and perching, bright blooming heather, the green valley below, scrambling, a big green lizard, choughs screeching, ponies galore, down down down to our favourite campsite, a pitch by the river where the pied wagtails flutter, cheese and wine.

***

Magic.

There is a water source about halfway along the ridge at the Col d'Harrieta although you have to divert off the GR10 for about 500m to get to it. This time, the source had almost stopped dripping - we had to leave our bottles under the pipe for a while to get them all filled up, so it's not really a good idea to rely on it being there. We decided to take a different route down to Saint-Etienne de Baigorry (via Urdos) from this point rather than following the GR10 along the ridge as we had done at least twice before because the weather was getting worse quickly...

The campsite we stayed in is the Camping Irouleguy (named after a local village which also gives it name to the local, delicious wine). It is an absolute gem of a campsite: small, friendly, with excellent sanitaires, situated right by the river so that you get lulled to sleep by the sound of running water (I know of no more relaxing sound). Although they were fully booked at the start of August, the woman who runs the campsite assured me on the phone that they always have space for hikers who turn up on foot. It also has a huge Intermarché supermarket right next to it which is useful for restocking on supplies.

The vital statistics:
Time hiking: 7h03
Peak: 1026m
Total ascent: 490m
Todat descent: 995m