Monday 7 June 2010

Into the mountains

The weather yesterday was appalling. I was awoken early by thunder and by the dog mithering - he simply hates thunder! It was wet all day so I took the opportunity to catch up on paperwork and indoor jobs. This of course meant that I was keen to get out today, especially when blue skies greeted me as I looked out of the window this morning. So the pooch and I headed over to the Guzet ski station which instead of snowy pistes, is now a mass of green slopes and wonderfully runnable tracks. I parked at Prat Matou and headed in the direction of Col d'Escots It was a stunningly beautiful morningMont Valier in the distance with Guzet ski station bottom rightVery little snow remains on Pic de Mont Rouge and Cap de Pis Blanc
I was heading for the track that leads from Col d'Escots around the bottom of Pic de Freychet
and on to Gerac below Pic de Seron (2489m)
It was warm and the pooch seemed to be struggling today. So from Gerac we headed up to the little Col de Cerda (at the bottom of the left hand flank of Pic de Seron above) and then contoured around the hillside to pick up the descent track from Pic de Freychet. Suddenly, in front of me, an enormous bird rose up into the sky in front of me. It was a Griffon vulture which is common in the area. And then another three appeared and started circling above my head towards the crags. I eventually got my act together and shot a short video of them.

The run back down the track was fast and fun. I covered just over 14kms with 573m of height gain. Stats are on the usual site.

3 comments:

Lee Sharp said...

Look like griffon vultures to me...are you sure they were bearded vultures? The bearded doesn't have the huge square wings of the griffon vulture, they're more pointed and it doesn't have a ruff and bald head. Tend to be solitary whilst griffon hang around in groups.

penny said...

I bow to your superior knowledge - they were just 'big birds' to me and I just kinda assumed they were the barbus ;-) Taa!

PigletinFrance said...

Big birds to me too! My eyesight wouldn't allow me to identify a bird that far away :(

What beautiful photos (again)! I'm just busy catching up on some reading and am glad I stopped by.