Today marked the opening of the cycling season in the departement of Haute Pyrenées, so the Nogaro club set off early to ride to a village near Tarbes. Nick joined 15 other hardy souls who left Nogaro at 8am to cover the 88km in time for the lunch provided by the St Juillan cycle club; ventreche (belly pork) sandwiches, cake, prunes, chocolate, wine, coffee….. then home again, 166km in total. After the weather we’ve experienced recently, today was amazing – warm and sunny, with not a drop of rain.

The all day bike ride coincided very nicely with the walking club’s raquette (snow shoe) walking trip to the Pyrenees, cancelled three weeks ago due to lack of snow. There was fresh snow this week, so we were able to go. Not many people were available because of the school holidays, so we were a small group of eight who set off from Nogaro as the sun rose this morning.  We set out from the ski station at Hautacam, where you can do downhill or cross country skiing or raquette walking, and hire the equipment if necessary; there are paths marked for several routes of varying distances. We did a 12km route, amid acres of virgin snow, stopping on the summit for lunch and to take in the amazing scenery all around. In the area used by the downhill skiers, their individual tracks were still evident, making the hillsides look like lace! The forecast had predicted heavy cloud all day, so I didn’t take sunglasses or sunscreen – bad mistake; it was glorious all day, so I now have a badly sunburnt face! I won’t make that mistake again.

I’m sorry about the quality of the photos; I took the small camera and couldn’t see anything on the screen in the sunlight!