Philip, Maybe you know where we went wrong. We found red paint splashes on the floor of the cirque and a path that took us to a rockfield at the foot of the cirque cliff. We lost the paint splashes in the rockfield but we had seen a sort of wide natural ledge or balcony, grass covered, climbing to the right up the cliff at about 25 degrees, we thought that would be what is referred to as the balcon de Sarradets, we could see a walker ahead of us so although there were no more paint splashes and not much path we thought it must be right. The ledge continued right for a long way some of it difficult and we ended on a grassy slope climbing beside a steepsided gully on our right with cliffs above us on our left. The grass itself at about 45 degrees sloping to the gully and against the way we were climbing. We had just rounded a rock buttress which involved easy but small hand and footholds but a clear drop into the gully when the walker abouve us descended to us saying he was lost and intended on going down as it was 6 o'clock. With difficulty we bivouacked up there the 3 of us. We decided we were on the wrong side of the Pic De Sarradets. In the morning we climbed up beside the gully until we could cross it and at the same time the cliffs on our left became a climbable slope and up there we found a path, probably used to climb the Pic de Sarrdets which we descended until it met the proper path to the refuge just at the top of the original cliffs of the cirque. The path there was good and waymarked with the paint splashes. I do not know how the path gets down the cliffs as we continued with a circuit and ascent of Perdido and did not come back that way.
