Ascent / descent: 675m (52750m) / 1514m (52423m).
Altitude (start / end / highest): 1500m / 661m / 1500m.
Weather: Sunny and clouds, overcast after a while.
It is well done to avoid any boring day on such a long journey as this, in the same way that you can't expect good weather on all the days either. Todays weather wasn't the worst, but the walk didn't offer anything special. Instead it was the excursions of the trail the made the day interesting.
Morning at the Mines de Batère.
I make an attempt to find the remains of the mines here, but after some fruitless searching in the woods I end up putting on my backpack and continue walking with an unresolved case behind me. It doesn't however take long time before I yet again deviate from the route. The tower in the distance is calling; perhaps there is a maiden in distress at the top of it. There isn't any maiden in distress in the top, but if there had been a person in the top of Tour de Batère (1439m) the person would probably had been in distress, maiden or not. To climb up into the tower is quite hazardous, the stones are loose and unsecure. The old signal tower built in the twelfth century is situated in a nice location with views over the valleys below.
Tour de Batère, an old signal tower from the twelfth century.
On the way back from the tour a car is stopping and out comes a man who immediately after starts hollering up to the hill above. I'm quite puzzled at the start, but then it dawns on me that it must be a farmer that gives an order to one of his sheep dogs to herd the livestock downwards. From above barks can be heard in response. It's been a blue sky above me so far, but when I start the descent from Col de la Descarga (1393moh) the clouds have started to furnish the sky above the landscape. No smoke signal is coming from Tour de Batère so I can safely continue further down.
Further down there is an abandoned building where it's written Refuge des Bigarrats on the wall, which easily could be interpreted as Refuge of Big Rats. Not a nice place, and a boring walk down from the pass. Claire did think about going here yesterday, but I think she's happy that she didn't. This is Els Vigorats (884m) and is the remains of an old station of some kind.
View to the Canigou-massif from the Tour de Batère.
I arrive at Arles sur Tech (282m), where the names of the streets are marked on engraved tiles with small and ornate paintings on. I walk in the town through small, narrow and nice streets before I encounter Claire at a street café. Of the larger places you pass on the trail this would have been one of the nicest ones to spend an evening in, but I want to continue. The cloister here is supposed to be well worth the visit, but I'll have save that visit to another time if the opportunity rises.
Above Arles sur Tech on the climb up to Coll de Paracolls, Mines de Batère a tiny white dot in the horizon.
It's been a long time since I've been as low down as Arles is lying, and the trail has understood that. It climbs steeply up towards Coll de Paracolls (902m). There is now a grey sky above me, with some few blue glimpses. High up and far away in the horizon I can see the white building of Mines de Batère. Canigou is hidden in between the clouds. In the view towards east is Roc St-Saveur jutting up from the forest and hills.
For the sake of the walk, there is a nice part to walk after Coll de Paracolls. The ruin of what is Paracolls is lying with a broken roof. After going down through the forest I arrive at Moulin de la Palette (661m), here I get myself a place at the Ecogîte de la Palette, a quiet and isolated place in the middle of the forest. It is a nice and small place, with a nice and small dormitory that I get for myself. So even if the walk today didn't offer the great excitement, the end of the day offered a nice stay in the kingdom of silence.
View just below Col de Paracolls, Roc St-Saveur prominent in the picture. Moulin de la Palette almost in the center of the picture.
Claire is arriving at the place later and is pitching her tent outside. We can hear the boars grunt while the pass through the garden. While the darkness descends over the forest my thoughts are going to something that has long been a remote target, there is now about only three days left before I stand at the shores of the Mediterranean and the end of my journey.
The Ecogîte de la Palette at Moulin de la Palette, a nice place situated in a quiet spot in the forest.
<- Mines de BatèreLas Illas ->
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