Germ - Granges d’Astau - Lac d’Oô - Lac d'Espingo
- Distance: 18km
- Duration: (with breaks): 9h 45min
- Elevation gain/loss: 1780m/1280m
So long, valley villages! Today I’m heading back to the mountains, the big ones. Even though today is full of ups and downs (elevation-wise), I don’t seem to be able to leave early. Nikolai and Romana departed while I was still waking up 🙂 Which actually works just fine. I love hiking by myself and I’m sure I’ll meet them somewhere on the trail or around the sleeping spot for tonight – Lac d’Espingo.
While 8:30 may seem late for hiker standards, Germ is still dead quiet when I leave. A step-ish ascent leads me deeper into a new valley, Val d’Aube, as I savor the morning peace and curiously observe my surroundings.
Once I reach a little dam, I get confused by my guiding app, and instead of following the trail straight ahead, I cross the dam and follow the path on the right. Now when I look back, it was not a very logical choice given that the next pass was on the left but at that time I thought it doesn’t matter if I go left or right.
I ended up making a small detour to Cabane d’Ourtiga, which, based on all the “souvenirs” inside, is sometimes used for sleeping. It is a clean basic cabane, definitely a good option if you’re in the area.
While I decided to rest a bit at the cabane, within 5 mins I was startled by noises of a comotion. A huge gang of cows reached the cabane, with many deciding to linger right next to the building and others proceeding further. I don’t see any shepherd or patou (shepherd dog), but I do see mama cows with little calves. This is going to be interesting.
As I need to cross the river to get back on GR10 on the other side, I somehow need to pass the herd of cows without being chased by mad cow moms. And of course, a few of them are settling on my trail. Of course. This meant that instead of going to the left towards the river, I need to walk to the right to create as much distance as possible between me and mama cows, which, by the way, are staring at me intently already.
Not impressed by my efforts to circled them around, they start moving towards me and making angry noises. Ok ok, point taken, I’ll move even further away. As I’m climbing up some weird slope opposite the direction of the trail, I hear fellow hikers shouting to me in french, I guess to come back. That’s very sweet of them, but mama cows will not let me cut corners so easily. Finally, I make a decent circle around them, cross the river and I’m back on the trail. Upon meeting the hikers I just smile and say “mama vache” (in french mama cow, literally), hoping they get my point 😀
From that point, the grueling climb up the pass begins. All I see is an endless zigzag up a mountain. Let’s just summarize it as a slow and sweaty section. The pass itself is more of a plateau with a few cows grazing the grass. The views were also limited, so I decided to descend and take a rest somewhere below instead. As I hiked down, I was amazed by all the greens around me – quite a contrast to rocky slopes in the Alps.
Soon the grassy valley was replaced by a steep forest path, which I followed to descend to Granges d’Astau, which is a super busy place with a few restaurants and, I guess, a handy place for day hikes.
By the time I reached it, the sun was blazing mercilessly and so I decided to take a break in one of the restaurants. I was so distracted that I apparently missed Nikolai and Romana waving and shouting to me frantically from one of the restaurant. Nikolai had to run after me as I just went past them without even looking. As it was soooo hot, I was glad to join them for lunch and we ended up having a two-hour break. No regrets though. Quite some climbing waited for us and it was better to do that in lower temperatures.
A late return to the trail also meant that we’ll be going against a major stream of day hikers coming back from Lac d’Oô. The path towards it was largely in a forest, which also helped to deal with the heat. We reached Lac d’Oô in less than an hour, so the afternoon siesta tactics worked well 🙂
Lac d’Oô area is quite nice, but as it’s a small dam surrounded by steep cliffs, it did feel a bit eerie. It is not allowed to camp or swim at the lake, so we continued on the last ascent to Lac d’Espingo.
Man, at this point I was pretty tired of climbing. The final climb was a steep zigzag on a rocky path and I had to take numerous breaks to keep on going. It didn’t help that it was already 17:30 and my mind (and body) complained about the “overtime”. At least the views were great when looking back.
After slowly pushing myself to keep on climbing for what felt like hours (probably 45mins in total), my relief upon reaching the top was immense. What. A. View. I was surrounded by a wall of magnificent peaks with a lake tucked below. And guess what? I’m going to sleep here tonight.
Before descending to the vicinity of the lake, we stopped at the Refuge d’Espingo and managed to score some homemade baklava (in the middle of nowhere!..), which was amazing. Nikolai was contemplating staying at the hut for the night, but it was full, so the three musketeers descended to the lake to wild camp there.
We were not the only ones on the hilly fields near the lake. Some wild-looking horses enjoyed the space here as well. At first, I was a bit wary about them running around, but then hey, there was not much I could do about it. Let’s just hope they keep their distance (They did. Until the morning).
We set up our tents and gathered for the last dinner on the trail. Wow, already the last night in the mountains. Tomorrow we’re heading to Bagneres-de-Luchon and that’s where the GR10 adventure ends for us. Tonight we’re just sitting quietly surrounded by this amazing landscape and soaking in the views while we have them. This is why we hike.
Day 8 tips
- The views from Val d’Aube are obscured once you reach the pass, so make sure to look back while climbing up.
- There’s no dedicated aire de bivouac place at Lac d’Espingo, you can camp anywhere below the hut. Several streams cut through the valley, so there’s plenty of water, which should be treated because of all those horses in the area.