How to get there:
This peak, located on the Spain/France border, has the distinction of being the highest French
peak in the Pyrenees. The higher peaks are all on the Spanish side of the border.
There is really only one trailhead for a reasonable, single day ascent of this peak.
This is a good parking spot at the end of a mountain road near a small dam called Barrage d'Ossoue.
This location is N42.75692, W000.09266, elevation about 1830 meter. The final road starts from
the small tourist village Gavarnie. Gavarnie is reached from the north via the larger town of
Luz-Saint-Sauveur.
Route description:
From the trailhead, first walk completely flat into the valley having the small lake on your left.
The trail crosses the stream on a bridge, then ascends
in order to pass the waterfall and enter a second
segment of the valley. The trail climbs
again to bypass a second gorge and enter its third segment
of the valley. From here, several more switchbacks to gain the terrain just below the cliffs with
several man made "caves". Easy to recognize.
Only a few meter onwards, near the first trail switch-back after the cave, there is a trail fork. The
official trail continues towards the refuge. The left fork ascends to some rocks with a snow line
(mid June 2024). With less snow, just continue uphill aiming for the lowest passage as seen from below.
Advancing uphill, one should just have higher (steepish) ground on the right, then gradually also somewhat
higher ground on your left as the route takes you into a valley, the glacier fills the upper part of
this terrain. Vignemale is the last (and highest) peak on your right hand side.
Continue an ascending traverse that will
pass close to the break in the ridge just before Vignemale, then
a bit more, getting into the lower part of the face of the peak extending down towards the glacier.
Advance to the highest snow, then a fairly easy rock scramble
following natural cracks and other
rock features. A final, short walk will get you to the summit. Comments:
I discovered that I needed to start from this trailhead after leaving Norway with all hotels
booked for Heidi and myself.
When looking at the peaks back home, I (wrongly) assumed that I could climb it (single day) from the
Spanish side. With a more careful look, I realized that the drive to this trailhead from our hotel
Estacion CanFranc would be rather long, more than 150 kilometer taking somewhat more than 3 hours
each way. Planning for an 8 hour climb, plus various stops/changes made me estimate that this trip
would be at least 16 hours total. Dinner with Heidi in the evening - so a start at 0300 would be needed.
I got going at 0300 as planned, and daylight arrived as I was driving up the final mountain road.
Parked at 0630, ready to walk by 0645. Nobody around, but a number of parked cars.
I had a nice, early morning walk,
arriving at first sunshine as well as seeing the first people
of the day, up near the caves after about 1:40. I sat down to attach crampons and had my first
BIG surprise of this trip. My crampon bag contained my ten point ski boot crampons, not the pair
to be used with my Sportiva boots. I first tried to adjust the size, close to impossible without any
better tools. Then, I realized that the ski boot crampons are really supposed to work with a range
of boots, also my mountain boots. Puh, they actually attached pretty well.
The next hour was just a long snow plod uphill. i passed several slower parties. The snow was pretty
good and a large number of foot steps showed that this peak was visited by many. I left my crampons
when running out of snow and scrambled the last section to arrive on top at
1100 sharp, so 4:15 up, including the 15 minute crampon stop.
A very nice summit with superb views in all directions, see the panorama video below.
Several other climbers up here, but they subsequently left and I was the only person on the
summit for about 10 minutes.
Good views, I noticed that I could see the valley
leading to my trailhead and the parking right
next to the small lake. Therefore, one may actually see this summit from the trailhead.
A young couple that I had passed on the glacier arrived. They asked
me to take their photo, we briefly chatted, then I left the summit to make them also have it exclusively
for a short moment. The time was 1120, on the way down
I talked to two ladies that were sitting
just where the snow ended. They were there when I ascended, and still in the same spot about 45
minutes later. They reminded me that it will be 50 years since my ascent of Mont Blanc this summer.
At that time, we all had similar ice axes.
Descending was easy
and with two brief stops alomg the way, i was back at my car in 2:55
for a total trip time of 7:30.
