Estaing - Refuge d’Ilheou
The heat had no sign of retreating. My plan “A” was to reach Cauterets on this day and tackle Hourquette d’Ossoue the next. But by now, we had serious doubt of the plan’s feasibility. I decided to skip plan “B” and go directly to plan “C”, which was to throw out my elaborate schedule-just get to the next closest refuge and decide then. Our kind host drove us to Lac Estaing, which saved us 3 miles of road walk under the sun.
Loaded up with water, we began the long climb towards Refuge d’Ilheou. We were a bit shaky as we didn’t know how long we could sustain the heat. The path immediately took us to a dense pine forest. What a blessing! Old pines, soaring into the sky, graciously shaded us for much of the climb. As we gained height, our mood started to lighten up. It didn’t take us that long to reach the beautiful plateau above the tree line, and we didn’t run into another water emergency! We did hear thunder though and it sounded quite close. A few minutes later, rain poured down. As this point, I feared more sun than rain. The cool water drops felt exhilarating! We covered our bags, but didn’t mind getting ourselves soaked. The powerful rain cooled down the atmosphere and cleared my head. It persisted as we climbed more steeply on the jagged crags. We passed couple cabanes. Those were huts shared by hikers and shepherds in case of bad weather. We shared our path with large herds of goats, but we moved along swiftly.
By the time we got to Col d’Ilheou, the blackened sky with roaring thunder made us feel very small and defenseless. Shocks of lightning followed. That was enough to send us scrambling for shelter. The plateau beyond the col was vast and exposed. The only assurance was hiker's yellow sign that the refuge was probably couple hours away. We walked as fast as we could. Then we spotted a tiny building in the distance, our safe harbor! But to get there, it still took quite a bit of ups and downs. The rocky, narrow passage along the flank of the mountain leading to the refuge got on Z.Z.’s nerve again. But this time he had no other choice.
The caretaker of the refuge was a kind, gregarious man. He spoke no English and we spoke no French. We were the only guest at that hour. But through Google translate and a lot of hand gestures, we got settled there. Soon after we dried up, we heard shattering noise all around. A hail storm! We watched in amazement the hard ice balls bouncing off the picnic tables with crackling noises. We sat on the old wooden bench in the dining area, with a steamy bowl of Gabour, feeling very lucky…
A few weary hikers crashed in amidst the storm. Everyone was thankful to be here.