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| NEWS! Walking Softly's hiking trips are now offered under our "Mountain Hiking Holidays" label. You can access information about our hiking trips at the Mountain Hiking Holidays website at www.MountainHikingHolidays.com. | |||||
| For a more complete description of the Pyrenees hiking trip, please go to the Pyrenees page at the Mountain Hiking Holidays website. | |||||
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| Wilder than the Alps, the Pyrenees form the natural border between France and Spain. Trails lead to the magnificent cirques, lake-spangled basins, and knife-edged summits of France’s Pyrenees National Park. On the Spanish side trails wind through the spectacular canyons of the Ordesa-Monte Perdido National Park, one of Europe’s oldest. In 1997, the United Nations inscribed a portion of the French and Spanish Pyrenees near the French village of Gavarnie and the Spanish village of Torla on its list of World Heritage Sites. Revel in a region where languages, food, and culture mix and flow. The Pyrenees are a feast for all your senses! | |||||
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| Days 1-3: From the meeting point in the French town of Pau, travel into the mountains to your base at the spa town of Cauterets at the edge of Pyrenees National Park. Hike to the mountain lake of Ilheou, explore the picturesque Marcadau Valley and test your mettle on a challenging ten-hour loop hike on the "Circuit des Lacs," a classic French Pyrenees hike! Enjoy hikes in the Gaube Valley to the sheer north face of Vignemale, highest peak in the French Pyrenees. Gaze on placid Lac de Gaube, an alpine tarn that mountaineer Henry Russell called, "the mirror of Vignemale." | |||||
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| Days 4-6: Travel by vehilce to the mountain village of Gavarnie at the heart of the high Pyrenees. From this base in the mountains explore the magnificent glacial cirques that form the centerpiece of the World Heritage area. Hike through the magnificent, glacially-carved Cirque de Troumouse, ascend to the Hourquette d'Alans, a narrow pass overlooking the Cirque d'Estaube, and follow a path into the heart of the Cirque de Gavarnie, perhaps the grandest of them all! For the most intrepid and prepared (and weather-permitting) an ascent to the snow-clad Breche de Roland on the border between France and Spain makes for never-to-be-forgotten memories. | |||||
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| Days 7-10: Hike from France to Spain along one of the old pilgrimage routes to Santiago to arrive at your new base in the charming, Spanish stone town of Torla. Hike in Ordesa Monte Perdido National Park enjoying trails that lead past a treasury of waterfalls in Ordesa Canyon (Spain's Grand Canyon). Other hikes carry you along wide ledges known as "fajas" high on the canyon walls or through the impressive, narrow defile of the Anisclo Canyon. Step into the past in tiny mountain hamlets where local craftsmen still ply their trade. On the final day, hike and picnic among fragrant herbs next to a medieval stone chapel high in the mountains. Return to Pau where your trip concludes. | |||||
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| For a more complete description of the Pyrenees hiking trip, please go to the Pyrenees page at the Mountain Hiking Holidays website. | |||||
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© Walking
Softly Adventures, Inc., PO Box 86250, Portland, OR 97286 |
Lacs de l'Embarrat on the Circuit des Lacs,
French Pyrenees. Photo by John Osaki. 
