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Despite spending the day walking through the famous Ossau Iraty region and passing several farmhouses with signs advertising cheese for sale, we failed to acquire any brebis. Just because a fromagerie/shop/restaurant proudly displays a sign that clearly says it is open, that does not mean it is actually open. Such is the logic of France.
There were awesome ancient cromlechs atop one of the golden grass mountains. Worth diverting 20m off the path to inspect and admire up close.
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| Ancient cromlechy goodness |
This is the restaurant that fed us large amounts of goats cheese and a huge pichet of wine. It helped with the hunger but made us super sleepy for the afternoon climb. Oops. Anyway, well worth a visit if you can resist the lure of a cheap pichet ;)
It was our first night sleeping inside again after a glorious unbroken stretch of sleeping in Colin the tent. We were not very pleased about it at all, but there really didn’t wasn't anywhere to bivouac around the Col de Bagargiak, as it has been entirely colonised by the Chalets d’Iraty ski resort/chalet holiday village. We didn’t realise until too late that the campsite mentioned in the guide and on the map is not actually on the GR10, but on a parallel route (on a road) and its situated way before you reach the main part of the resort. So we would have had to go back on ourselves a fair few kilometres to get there and we were not at all interested in doing that after a long day involving lots of steep hills. I asked about bivouacing next to the gîte d’étape and the man who ran it told me in no uncertain terms that this was not allowed. We realised when we were cooking that we were far too obedient and should have just ignored him like the people in three other tents had done. Instead we spent an uncomfortable night in bunk beds in an overpriced room with a radiator blasting out heat – despite it being the middle of August no amount of turning dials or pressing switches could convince it to turn off. Added to this I was terrified about bed bugs after hearing nasty rumours about them devouring unsuspecting hikers whilst they were sleeping. There was no sign of them whatsoever in this place after all but I certainly did not get a good night’s sleep…
Despite not enjoying our stay in the gîte, and finding the whole ski resort area of Chalets d’Iraty massively over-populated, it is worth mentioning that the people who ran the shop opened it up especially for us and another couple of hikers, allowing us to buy precious resupplies. It was expensive, sure, but a feast is a feast.
The vital statistics:
Time hiking: 8h35
Peak: 1433m
Total Ascent: 1214m
Total Descent: 607m
It was our first night sleeping inside again after a glorious unbroken stretch of sleeping in Colin the tent. We were not very pleased about it at all, but there really didn’t wasn't anywhere to bivouac around the Col de Bagargiak, as it has been entirely colonised by the Chalets d’Iraty ski resort/chalet holiday village. We didn’t realise until too late that the campsite mentioned in the guide and on the map is not actually on the GR10, but on a parallel route (on a road) and its situated way before you reach the main part of the resort. So we would have had to go back on ourselves a fair few kilometres to get there and we were not at all interested in doing that after a long day involving lots of steep hills. I asked about bivouacing next to the gîte d’étape and the man who ran it told me in no uncertain terms that this was not allowed. We realised when we were cooking that we were far too obedient and should have just ignored him like the people in three other tents had done. Instead we spent an uncomfortable night in bunk beds in an overpriced room with a radiator blasting out heat – despite it being the middle of August no amount of turning dials or pressing switches could convince it to turn off. Added to this I was terrified about bed bugs after hearing nasty rumours about them devouring unsuspecting hikers whilst they were sleeping. There was no sign of them whatsoever in this place after all but I certainly did not get a good night’s sleep…
Despite not enjoying our stay in the gîte, and finding the whole ski resort area of Chalets d’Iraty massively over-populated, it is worth mentioning that the people who ran the shop opened it up especially for us and another couple of hikers, allowing us to buy precious resupplies. It was expensive, sure, but a feast is a feast.
The vital statistics:
Time hiking: 8h35
Peak: 1433m
Total Ascent: 1214m
Total Descent: 607m
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