Day 22: Lac de Gaube to La Cabane de Lourdes

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

Day 21: Cauterets to the Lac de Gaube.

Listening to thunder roll around the valleys through the night, celebrating one year since we got married by eating all the pastries in the bakery, hiking up out of Cauterets along cascading waterfalls on the rocky forest path to the Pont d'Espagne, dipping in and out of the cloud, a crazy big yellow and black salamander crawling along the path, arriving at the Lac Gaube in time to catch the last warm rays of sunshine over the mountain side making it glow deep turquoise, sipping wine and admiring the view, setting up camp by the river and watching a dipper do its dippy dance over pebbles on the opposite bank as the evening sky clears and Vignemale looms in the distance... 

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There is another GR10 variant out of Cauterets that takes you to Luz-Saint-Saveur in one day rather than 2 or 3, but we had decided from the very beginning that we wanted to take the longer route past Vignemale and Gavarnie and it was worth every single moment of the extra time it took. 

The vital statistics:
Total time hiking: 5h24
Peak: 1729m
Total ascent: 951m
Total descent: 164m