Mérens-les-Vals (1057 m) – Porteille des Bésines (2333 m) – Refuge de Bésines (2104 m)

I start my journey in Mérens-les-Vals, where the train drops me off in the early morning. This station is on a direct line from Paris and the GR10 goes right through the village, which makes it a very convenient place to start or end a Pyrénées hike.

The sun is barely illuminating the tip of the surrounding mountains as I start. I soon leave the quaint village with its rustic mountainside church to engage on the narrow cobble-stoned train that laces into the woods. Despite the crisp morning air and the cold wind, I am soon sweating from the humidity at this relatively low altitude. Drinking from the streams and pools on the side of the trail is out of the question: they have a high concentration in sulfur, which you can smell as you walk. The poolss are a beautiful blue-green color and seem inviting for a swim – except the water is ice-cold.

The old church in Mérens-les-Vals

Soon I leave the woods to find a more alpine landscape. For about two hours, the trail climbs softly along a stream, with a few short waterfalls here and there. I cannot see the sun yet, but it is lighting up a bigger portion of the mountains by the minute. Finally, I take a break to refill my bottle from the river around 9:00, right as the sun finally hits me and immediately warms up the air.

After another 45 minutes or so, the trail veers South, and the real climbing starts. The trail gets steeper as the air gets warmer, and I am soon puffing and grunting, sometimes using my hands to climb. Luckily this climb is short, and after about 1 hour I can take another break at l’Estagnas, the first mountain lake I encounter, at 2030m. The warmth of the sun is not enough to make up for the coldness of the wind though, and as soon as I cool down I set off for the climb up to Porteille des Bésines, my first pass. The climb is, again, short but steep; the last few hundred yards are unstable scree, and the wind gets stronger by the minute.

The cold wind is so strong at the pass (2333m) that there is virtually no stopping there, other than to take a few photos. The view is already stunning: it is not even noon yet on my first day and I already feel like I am really up in the mountains. As I engage on the hike down, I cannot resist the urge to leave the trail for a few hundred yards to walk on the little snow that subsists at this altitude.

A cairn marks the Bésines pass

On the way down, a sheep herder is trying to keep his flock together. Using voice and whistling to give orders to his two small dogs, he is trying to regroup his sheep and asks me to wait a few minutes while he gets them all on the other side of the trail. Once that is done, I chat with him for a few minutes. He spends five months in the mountains, living in a hut. Every day he takes his sheep to the grassland, then back to where they are safe from predators. The wind makes it difficult to keep together, because the dogs cannot hear the voice commands: he tells me that just today he lost three sheep, and that he is going to have to go look for them. But he keeps his priorities straight: “I don’t know when I’ll be able to do it, he says. I still have to eat, and then nap.”

A herd of sheep on the South side of Porteille des Bésines

I arrive at the Bésines Hut around 1:30p. The sun shines high in the sky, but the cold wind keeps blowing, making it uncomfortable to sit on the terrace. The couple manning the hut reheats a beef stew for my lunch (the manager takes his donkey to the store once a week, which takes four hours each way), and I spend the afternoon enjoying the scenery and observing other hikers. The hut overlooks the Etang de Bésines and benefits from a spectacular location. At night, the photovoltaic panels provide electricity for a few hours.

On this first day I have walked for about four hours (5 1/2 hours with breaks), covered about 6 miles and climbed 1200m.