The Pyrenean Haute Route - A Trekker's Guidebook

Guidebook to the Pyrenean Haute Route (HRP), one of Europe’s most beautiful and challenging walks. Taking the highest practical line through the Pyrenees on both French and Spanish sides of the main ridge, the route is 800km long. The guidebook breaks it into 42 stages, and adds 10 major peak ascents along the way. Full village and facility details.

What is the Pyrenean Haute Route (known in French as the Haute Randonnée Pyrénéenne)? It is a long-distance footpath from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean that follows the main ridge of the Pyrenees. The Haute Route is not itself waymarked, which means that there are all sorts of marks along the trail: paint flashes in various colours, GR waymarks (red–white), cairns, border stones and sometimes no marks at all. In fact the Haute Route is not a trail as such, but rather an idea. As a result Haute Route walkers often have a choice of routes, and there are numerous variants that allow walkers to avoid difficult sections of the Haute Route’s main track.

In summer, from mid-July until the end of August, very little mountaineering equipment is needed. Only the third section of the Haute Route contains a few stages that may require crampons and ice axe. There is, however, a three-day variant in this guide (from Viados to Hospital de Vielha, after Day 24) that enables you to avoid these difficult stages. Should you follow this alternative route, it is possible to complete the Haute Route without any mountaineering equipment.

Having said that, the Haute Route is suitable only for experienced trekkers. Those who undertake it must have wide experience of walking on all sorts of terrain, including steep scree slopes, boulder fields and snowfields. They also need to know how to navigate in the mountains, even in difficult conditions (mist). The Haute Route leads sometimes through untamed, remote areas where there are no waymarks or paths. The ability to read the landscape is necessary; a good intuition of how to walk (which comes with the years) is useful; and knowledge of how to use map and compass (or GPS) is indispensable.

This guide describes the Haute Route from west to east in 42 stages, divided into five sections:

• through the Basque territory (8 days)
• highlights of the Parc National (7 days)
• Gavarnie to Salardu (9 days)
• Salardu to l’Hospitalet-près-l’Andorre (8 days) and
• through the Eastern Pyrenees (10 days).

Each section begins with an introduction that contains useful practical information (accommodation, telephone numbers, maps, access to walk start points, food supply points, information on villages and internet sites).

Throughout the route there are numerous variants – alternative routes that allow the walker to avoid a difficult section should weather conditions not be in your favour. But even if you take the variant on every possible occasion, the Haute Route is still a tough trek that can only be completed successfully by experienced, well-prepared mountain walkers. More than 800km of walking and over 40km of climbing (and descent) isn’t a piece of cake. The variants are certainly not meant as an invitation to walk the Haute Route ‘the Dutch way’, avoiding every difficult section. Don’t forget that a choice for the Haute Route is also a choice for challenge. Walkers who seek to avoid all obstacles set by the main track of the Pyrenean Haute Route are not quite ready for the toughest, but also the most beautiful, coast-to-coast walk through the Pyrenees.