For the last two years I've gone to the Pyrenees for short 5/6 day trips with assorted offspring (my own, brother's and partner's). This mid-September we are visiting the area around Ordesa, and are thinking of camping for 2 or 3 of the days south west of the Breche de Roland and north of the canyon itself, possibly in the Llanos de Salarons or Llanos de Millaris (using this as a base to ascend Taillon, Marbore, and walk the Faja de Flores).
I should like to know from anyone:
- if there is water nearby at that time of the year,
- what your views are about whether to leave tents pitched (security, blot on the landscape issues), and
- whether there are good alternative sites to stop nearby.
Finally, when I was last in the area, the area around the Goriz refuge was hectic. Do you reckon it's OK to book ahead to eat at the refuge and then camp a few hundred metres away, and if so, SW or SE of the refuge for a good site?
I camped in that general area back in 2006. Fabulous views of the sun setting perched right on the edge of the Circo de Cotatuero cliffs and over to the other side of the Ordesa Canyon. One of my favorite campsites anywhere. Apart from the pools and major drainage streams you can see on the map I think it's a pretty dry area. I can remember being very pleased to find the merest dirty trickle coming down a rock to fill my bottle from anyway. Plenty of tents left up around the refuge all day.
Oh, and if it's any use to anyone reading this, right down the bottom of the Ordesa Canyon there are some pretty dense woods that it's possible to squeeze a small tent in way off the path and no one would ever know you were there.
I agee with Steve that you can always find wild camp spots in the area, but you have to be committed to being a bit more discreet than normal.
I shall be going that way in a week's time and don't have an itinerary. The secret of wild amping in this area is to carry water. I often carry a spare 2 litre Platypus of water with me. I rarely have need for it but it does give you that extra amount of confidence. I shall also be taking one of the new Aguagear filters with me as it is so cheap and light and should cope with dodgy water supplies.
If you're not sure just note that there are a number of newish campsites around the entrance to the canyon now which should allow easier access to day hikes in the area - I think I might try one or two of them out this summer.
Goriz is one of those place that you have to go through from time to time. You'll be in a lot of company but make the most of it. You'll loose the crowds next day.
We wild camped around the canyon but, as said above, despite being able to find discreet sites we struggled to find good water sources. If you pass one, fill up to your limit as you may not find another for the rest of the day.
For information, a guy on the Ordesa forum - www.ordesa.net/foro/ - tells me that the only water he found in the area was a small spring, looking north from the Llanos de Millaris, 'on the right at the foot of the first terrace'.
I know that water can always be carried from the refuges - Sarradets on the French side of the breche, and Goriz in Spain, 4km to the SE.
Have a good trip, Andy. I recall that there were superb pitches to the SE of Goriz (although I was using only a buffalo bag - until the snake paranoia got too much).
Brilliant pics, Ivo, and reassuring that there are plenty of good camp areas.
Just for info, I got very sick after drinking water from a stream in that area in the mid-1990s, so I'd be careful about treating / filtering / boiling any water you do come across. Beautiful region though
Just for info, I got very sick after drinking water from a stream in that area in the mid-1990s, so I'd be careful about treating / filtering / boiling any water you do come across. Beautiful region though
Yeah, me too. The only time I've been sick like that out in the hills. A few hours after drinking from the big waterfall at the head of the Ordesa Canyon but ofcourse it could have been something entirely unrelated. Anyone know how long it should take for something like that to kick in after exposure to the source?
Re the snake stuff: it's nothing to do with that scene in Kill Bill when Michael Madsen alias Sidewinder opens the case (rucksack?) to that black mamba, honest.
I've seen many snakes on Dartmoor, especially when I go out with didlee daughter who has an uncanny knack of stepping or squating over them. Wistman Wood's a good spot for adders.
I've also seen several in the Pyrenees, including asps. They're easiest to see if you come up on them quickly, for example when cycling on the jeep track up Canigou. Usually the little blighters just make off harmlessly. I did meet a guy, though, walking the HRP in Val Ferrera in September who said that he'd had to wait over half an hour for a viper to let him pass. And I did get bitten by something once in the long grass above Lescun. I thought it was a bramble at the time, but felt unwell shortly afterwards and slept for a couple of hours. Later I noticed that I had two pin pricks above my left ankle.
I used to sleep in a buffalo bag, with exposure bag if it was really wet, as it's good for overnighting unseen in dodgy places, or (to keep this a bit on thread) caves like the good one on the trail up the Anisclo canyon near Ordesa., a km from the Fon Blanca. But I started to feel a bit exposed to things that wriggle in the night, and gave up on the buffalo. I trace it back a comic when I was a kid where a rattler snuck up to some bad-arsed cowboy bivvying and he got his just desserts.
Well, good to get all that stuff off my chest! The main thing is that I mostly travel solo, and I don't think that a tube of Waspese in the first aid bag will sort out snakebite.
I'm taking a Steripen that I've just bought. In 2006 one of my kids got sick near the Balou hut not far from Coma de Pedrosa, though I've never sterilized any water in the Pyrenees before.
Re the snake paranoia: it's nothing to do with that scene in Kill Bill in the outback when Michael Madsen, alias Sidewinder, opens the case (rucksack?) to that black mamba, honest.
Snakes have rights!
I've seen many on Dartmoor, especially when I go out with didlee daughter who has an uncanny knack of stepping or squating over them. Wistman Wood's a good spot for adders.
I've also seen several in the Pyrenees, including asps. They're easiest to see if you come up on them quickly, for example when cycling on the jeep track up Canigou. Usually the little blighters just make off harmlessly. I did meet a guy, though, walking the HRP in Val Ferrera in September who said that he'd had to wait over half an hour for a viper to let him pass. And I did get bitten by something once in the long grass above Lescun. I thought it was a bramble at the time, but felt unwell shortly afterwards and slept for a couple of hours. Later I noticed that I had two pin pricks above my left ankle.
I used to sleep in a buffalo bag, with exposure bag if it was really wet, as it's good for overnighting unseen in dodgy places, or (to keep this a bit on thread) caves like the good one on the trail up the Anisclo canyon near Ordesa., a km from the Fon Blanca. But I started to feel a bit exposed to things that wriggle in the night, and gave up on the buffalo. I trace it back a comic when I was a kid where a rattler snuck up to some bad-arsed cowboy bivvying and he got his just desserts.
Well, good to get all that stuff off my chest! The main thing is that I mostly travel solo, and I don't think that a tube of Waspese in the first aid bag will sort out snakebite. I've just bought a Golite Shangri-La for use in Agues Tortes and Ordesa this September - with the groundsheet which again leaves the shelter a bit open ... .
A few years ago, walking up to Respmunso, I saw a Spanish guy waving at me and shouting something. He was looking at my feet. I was tired and it was hot ad it had been a long day. I just ploughed on, but I did look down just long enough to see I'd trodden on a viper. Luckily I was wearing Scarpa boots in those days.
outh of col de la cascade/never been there)
