Paul Lydon: Pic du Midi de Bigorre

Karen and I were up at 06:50 to join Pete and Keith on a trip to the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. As we were getting dressed there were a group of local men in cars and pick-up trucks outside getting ready for a day of hunting as the season was just starting.
We drove for about 85 miles, taking an hour and a half, mostly on motorway, to a ski resort nearly at the col below the peak with a cabin-type teleferique costing €30, going up to the summit in two stages.
Luckily even though it was overcast until we arrived at the resort, there and of course the rest of the peak was in bright sunshine. There were stunning views of the surrounding mountains with the cloud lower down in the valleys. The summit has several telescope domes as it is a site of Astronomical importance and also a large French TV transmitter aerial.
After a look around the summit area, which was covered with the astronomical installations, we went in search of something to eat as it was around midday and we were getting hungry after an early breakfast but the restaurant wasn't yet open. One of the old telescope domes was converted into an astronomical exhibition, so we had a wander around that for a while.
Soon hunger got the better of us and we waited 10 minutes for the next teleferique back down. We returned to the car park to find a man feeding three of the local wild donkeys with bread from the back of his car. We found a pizzeria open (most things were closed until the ski season) and had pizzas for lunch sitting outside.
Afterwards we drove back via minor roads to take in several cols, This route was also about 85 miles, but obviously slower, according to Boyd who had done the trip the other day. In the end it was a bit longer than planned as the navigator (Keith) fell asleep while navigating! It didn't help that I had a headache and rumbling guts plus the interminable hairpin bends.
Anyway, we arrived back at the gite at around 17:40 to find the cavers had just returned from their trip in the Trou des Heretiques (Boyd, Waggy, Paul, Phil and Steve).
After a sit down and a mug of tea I felt much better (maybe it was due to dehydration) and spent two hours trying to convince Paul Thorne that his GPS (given to him by Trish as it had a dodgy switch - which he fixed) would not work with the cave locations given using the Lambert co-ordinates. Eventually he realised that you had to find the cave entrance on the 1:5000 map (which had GPS-incompatibe Lambert co-ordinates), then locate it on the 1:25,000 ( which had appropriate co-ordinates for the GPS) and enter these co-ordinates in the GPS. Once he and Boyd had done this for the gite and it agreed, they realised I was right.
Paul then entered the co-ordinates for Gouffre des Pyrénois (or “Goofree days pirinoise” as they pronounced it!) and then walked up and down the car park to find that the GPS gave the correct bearing and distance, they were happy.
It would have been quicker to just do what I had said two hours before...
Later in the evening we heard strange animal noises coming from the wooded area on the ridge opposite. There were various guesses on the origins of the noises including wild boar, but as we had heard this before back in the UK, Karen and I knew that it was rutting stags.