Snowshoes in the Pyrenees
There comes a point in life when you realise that certain parts of your body are aging faster than othes! Take my knees; someone, please, take my knees. Walking is fin
e, but the stresses of skiing are just a bit too much, and therein lies a problem: I love mountains and I love snow. What to do?
While wandering around the Internet one night, I came across an article about snowshoes. Now, like most people, the only snowshoes I have ever seen have been strapped to the feet of Canadian trappers in 1940s Gary Cooper films.
Times have moved on, however, and snowshoes no longer look like old-fashioned tennis rackets! So when my family decided to pay for a winter weekend trip to Cauterets in the Pyrenees as my Christmas present, I decided to look into the possibility of a little gentle walking in the snow.
France has a highly-developed system of mountain guiding, and I was lucky enough to make contact with Blandine Longue, a qualified Accompagnateur en Montagne and snowshoe instructor. Many of the major outdoor shops seem to be closely associated with a specific guide, and Blandine is associated with the Decathlon shop in Cauterets.
Cauterets sits close to the French/Spanish border in the Midi-Pyrenees, and the focus of our day was to walk up from Pont d’Espagne to the beautiful Lac de Gaube; however, the Saturday morning could not have been further from the cold and sunny Pyrenees I had been expecting. Until 11am it poured with rain, and the group of snowshoe enthusiasts I was planning to join had shrunk from ten to just six hardy souls.
At the Pont d’Espagne car park, Blandine measured our booted feet and adjusted our snowshoes for a snug fit. Each boot sits on a hinged plate and is held firmly in place via toe and ankle straps. To my surprise, this simple arrangement never came loose.
I had expected that you would have to walk with an unnatural gait, swinging each foot out sideways to avoid clashing snowshoes; but in practice this simply isn’t so, you just walk normally. Two ski poles completed the outfit, and off we went as the weather brightened up.
I have walked up to Lac de Gaube (in summer) on several occasions, and the path wanders up through shaded pinewoods and along a high valley floor until the lake is revealed. The scenery is beautiful, but the first section of the path consists of numerous man-made steps edged with local stone. 
Now whoever built the path was at least two metres tall, because the steps are too high for comfort on the way up, and far too high for comfort on the way down! I was therefore horrified to see that we started off in that direction!
No problem, however, since we almost immediately turned off the path and into the woods before the steps began. It soon became clear that walking in snowshoes was going to be fun. The wide footplates prevent your boots from sinking into the snow, and the small spikes on the base of each snowshoe prevent you from slipping back downhill on slopes. The ski poles are vital to maintain your balance and (usually!) prevent tumbles into snowdrifts.
We walked with frequent stops to take off jackets and fleeces as body temperatures rose. Blandine is a mine of information about the Parc National and the Pyrenees in general. At every stop we learned something new about the mountains, and on numerous occasions we saw isards, a member of the antelope family.
In summer it is not practical to walk anywhere but on the main path, since the woodland floor is a jumble of rocks and fallen trees. In winter, the snow fills all the crevices and snowshoes allow you to wander at will.
At least the slope eased back and we were on the horizontal section of the path, with steep mountainside to our left and a stream, the outflow of the Lac de Gaube, on our right. We wandered in and out of the trees, never sticking to the actual path, until we halted for a longer stop where the stream opened out into a large pond.
It was surprising to see how well the snowshoes coped with rough ground; the short spikes gripped sloping boulders and allowed to walk over rocks with ease. Most of the snowshoe party were over 50, yet none of us found the walking difficult.
As you step forward, the plate to which your boot is attached hinges at its forward end, allowing your heel to lift. As you swing your foot forward and place your weight on the snowshoe, the plate goes back to horizontal. Going uphill (where ideally you do not want your heel too far downhill of your toe, overstretching your calf muscle) there is a small metal clip which you flip into position and which supports your heels.
In summer the restaurant by the lake does brisk business in gateau basque and coffee, but in January there is no such luxury. We sat on a rock in the sun and ate baguettes et fromage. From somewhere within her voluminous rucsac Blandine produced a beautiful blueberry gateau and a thermos flask of tea. Excellent!
Walking uphill generates a surprising amount of heat and perspiration even when the temperature is hovering around zero. Several layers of light clothes for warmth and a wind/waterproof over the top make the ideal outfit. My outer layer has long ‘venting’ zips under the arms which let you fine-tune your temperature.
After a rest, we kitted up again and started back along the opposite side of the stream, where the snow was around a metre deep. Almost immediately we heard a rumble as a small avalanche ran down the hillside above the path we had taken on the way up to the lake. Walkers under the line of the avalanche looked up then began to run. Can you run in snowshoes? Well they could! In then event, the snow slide was held back by the trees and stopped short of the path.
The walk back was even better than the walk up. We skirted huge boulders as we followed the stream back to the trees. Blandine told us more about the geology, the trees, the woodpeckers, and more. We took it in turns to sit and slide down a 10m slope on our backsides and generally act like children!
All the party except me were French and there was no conversation in English (although Blandine speaks more English than she lets on!). My French is fairly basic, but I was able to get the gist of most of the commentary.
The sun dropped below the ridge to our left and the temperature dropped steadily. Considering how the day had begun, the afternoon’s weather had been excellent. Eventually we emerged from the woods to find ourselves half way down one of the ski de fond tracks, which we followed down to the bridge (the actual pont in Pont d’Espagne).
Snowshoeing is BIG in France and Switzerland. If you don’t believe me, just go to Google in your web browser and search for raquettes de neige. I just tried that and came up with 37,000 hits!
A day out with Blandine (tel +33 05 62 92 58 07) as a member of a group cost me less than €30 and was well worth the cost. I’m hooked - I can’t wait to get back on snowshoes again and get walking.