Tour des Lacs d'Ayous

Lyndon and Jennifer Jolley

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This is a tremendous full day's walk in the high Pyrenees. Starting from the car park just above the dam on Lac de Bious-Artigues, you go through the gorge up to the hanging valley Haut Vallée d'Ossau just below Pic du Midi d'Ossau. You then climb quickly up to a series of glacial lakes surrounding the Refuge d'Ayous on Lac Gentau. You climb again to the highest lake, Lac Bersau, before dropping again over a series of airy descents and around more lakes to the valley floor. The views throughout are fabulous, dominated by the spectacular Pic du Midi d'Ossau; the combination of blue sky and lakes, dramatic mountains and soaring birds makes this an unforgettable experience.

France - South West France - Aquitaine - Pyrenees Atlantiques

Features

Birds, Butterflies, Flowers, Great Views, Lake/Loch, Mountains, Wildlife
10/12/2008 - Helen Shotbolt

An amazing & beautiful walk full of gorgeous lakes, stunning views and distant cow bells! Actually it only took us 4 hours with quite a few stops along the way. Definately recommend driving to this walk, didn't seem to be any buses but perhaps we were out of peak time. So glad we decided to do this walk and follow these instructions - very clear. In fact, at the highest lake my boyfriend got down on one knee and proposed! Couldn't have been more romantic! It was a lovely, warm and sunny day, but we were followed by clouds all the way up, which then caught up with us at the top. We could barely see 10 metres ahead on the way down through the clouds but the path was very good and it wasn't a problem - I was on cloud 9 anyway!