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.