The Way – Filmed on the Camino

http://www.huliq.com/10282/camino-pilgrimage-praised-way-and-those-spiritual-journey

Celebrate Basque Culture with Pyrenees Pilgrimage

Upcoming Pyrenees Pilgrimage event on Thursday, May 12, 2010 – http://www.takeaclass.org/store/index.php?main_page=product_class_info&products_id=493

This adult education center is near Dupont Circle in downtown Washington DC.  There will be Basque food, wine tasting and discussion. Meet other travelers!

Vinemale

Cauterets

Anne Lister, a self-assured 19^th century English woman with relentless energy and an inheritance, made mountaineering history here.   In 1838, she was the first non-local person to climb Vignemale, the second highest peak in the Pyrénées.  Lister inherited the income from her family’s farms in England and could afford to hire guides to organize expeditions. Of course the local guides had scaled these mountains regularly and probably their daughters, sisters and wives with them. 

Vignemale in the Pyrenees Mts.

Anne Lister decided to try mountain climbing after a walking vacation in Switzerland in 1827.  By 1830, she had climbed a few peaks in the Pyrénées Mountains and in 1838, returned to the Southwest for more mountaineering.  She was hoping to tackle a mountain not yet conquered by an amateur climber.

Local shepherds and hunters regularly hiked these mountains, and once the foreigners with heavy purses arrived looking for mountain adventures, the shepherds were scouting new routes up the daunting peaks.  One guide, whom Anne had hired during previous journeys in the Pyrénées, told her about a route up Vignemale, the crown of the Pyrénées rising behind Cauterets.

Local mountain guides, Henri Cazaux and Bernard Guillembet climbed the 3,298 meters of Grand Vignemale in 1837 via the Ossoue Glacier.  They fell in a large crevasse, found their way across a glacier for a free-form descent into the Rio Ara side of the mountain. This circuitous southern route was used by Anne Lister to make the first ascent by a visiting amateur climber.

Though it was August, Anne prepared for cold weather, always wise in high altitudes. Like me, she wore layers of clothing.  Unlike me, her garments were capes and petticoats, not pants and fleece jackets.  The guides brought along crampons for crossing ice.  With her guides, Lister left Cauterets before dawn on August 7, 1838 and pausing only for brief rest stops, the group reached the summit of Vignemale by 1 p.m.  They wrote their names on paper enclosed in a bottle left at the summit.  That should have been undisputable proof of the accomplishment.

But the next day, Lister’s lead guide escorted Joseph Napoleon Ney, known as the 2nd Prince de La Moskowa and the eldest son of Napoleon’s trusted military general Marshal Michel Ney who was given the title Prince de La Moskowa for leadership during the Napoleonic Wars, to Vignemale’s summit.  The guide let the Prince think he was the first amateur climber to reach the top.  When Anne discovered the guide’s deception, she refused to pay him until he rectified the matter.  The guide admitted to Joseph Ney that he’d lied and signed a certificate asserting Anne had conquered Vignemale first.  The proof was the bottle with the signatures and statements by the other guides.

Climbing Vignemale was a point of honor for Anne, but her achievement faded from public notice.  Nearly a century later, when women mountaineers were looking for role models, Anne’s diaries were published, revealing the details of her intriguing and adventurous life.  I don’t exactly consider her a role model because she had an independent income while I work to support myself.  Lister spent a great deal of her time pursuing high-level social contacts, again, not my modus operandi.  But I liked the idea that the first recorded non-local to summit Vignemale was made by a woman. And that was one reason for staying near Vignemale; another was the breathtaking scenery and the opportunity to make my own much more modest hikes.

Pilgrimage Routes in 1648

Pilgrimage Paths in the Pyrenees, 1648

In 1648 the Camino Francés de Santiano de Compostela was an extensive web of paths across France through the Pyrenees and westward along northern Spain to Santiago.  I’ve walked the southern French path which passes through St Jean Pied de Port, Ostabat, Oloron, St Bertrand de Comminges and other outposts.

This excerpt from Pyrenees Pilgrimage describes entering Ostabat at dusk with no place to stay.

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Steady on my way, onward through darkening twilight, I found the pilgrim church at Ostabat.  There was a time, back in 1350 when twenty or more hostels provided shelter for pilgrims.  Visitors would first stop by the church, give thanks for their safe passage and seek a place to bed down for the night.  But Ostabat’s chapel doors were locked.  A group of men smoked and drank a pastis on a nearby bar terrace.  I asked them about the route to the farm at Arhansus where I’d arranged a room for the night.   Smirking slightly –how could they not, confronted by a sweating middle-aged American women stooped under a pack, so alien from their gender divided culture: women toiling at home, men relaxing in public — they waved me further along the GR-65 path, toward the two -lane paved road heading south.

Ostabat behind me, I soldiered onward towards the farm, which Madam of the farmstead had told me during our phone call lay a couple of kilometers past the village of Arhansus.  Suddenly, I was aware of a car trolling behind me.  A grizzled guy in a white work-van rolled down the window and asked if I wanted a lift.  “Arhansus is ten kilometers more.” Then, he pointed to the ridge in the distance, saying, “That’s the farm you’re looking for, way over there.  You’ll never get there by nightfall.”   Was he taunting me, I wondered?  “No, thanks, I don’t need a ride,” I told him and hitched my pack higher on my shoulders.   He wasn’t really menacing, I decided, as he drove off and I walked onward.  Surely, he was just trying to be helpful.

During dinner at Etchegoyhen farm, the other guests, a quartet of conservative middle class travelers on a driving tour, launched a quasi-fascist commentary on what was wrong with France (the immigrants) and how to fix France (kick the immigrants out). The host egged them on and if the stuffed heads of wild animals that adorned the walls were any indication, he was a card carrying member of the French equivalent of the National Rifle Association.

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Excerpt from chapter 3, Pyrenees Pilgrimage by L Peat O’Neil, ©2010

Pyrenees Geology

Prospecting in the Pyrenees? Here’s the geology map to plot your search.

If you are planning on hiking in France, the best topo maps are from IGN.

 

Woman Artist Walks Pyrenees Alone

The book, Pyrenees Pilgrimage, illustrated with sketches and watercolors from the journey is now available through Amazon.com.

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Excerpt from Pyrenees Pilgrimage….

This particular Sunday was a day of patrimony in France and many historic buildings would be open to the public without charge. My promenade to St. Etienne de Baigorry followed an orange blazed trail down hill from Urdos. Waiting for the chateau to open, I sketched the mountains with a lead pencil, my mental voice repeating instructions culled from Corcoran art classes.  Dark recedes, light advances,” Leslie Exton would say.  She was the head of the painting and drawing department and over the years, I took many classes with her.  “Shade gradually, blend the tones.  Remember your distinct tone values.”  It was working.  My drawing ability had improved.

Pyrénées Mountains, watercolor by L Peat O’Neil

Basque Surfing

Basque surfin’ safari.  Plan your vacation at this friendly travel site Read more about other Basque surfing opportunities