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well-marked paths are not what the French do best.

After doubling back twice and being forced to abandon my original route due to a complete lack of paths I managed to arrive at the refuge that was built at the bottom of the Cirque. From there I knew I needed to turn right, and so I took the first path I found, afraid that I would be taken off course if I headed any further.

I followed a small track up to the base of the mountain - "Le Pic des Sarradets" - and kept climbing as it turned from a steep path into a steep and rocky scramble. After maybe half an hour's climb I met a sheer rock wall with a sheen of water trickling over it. I sat down and wondered whether traversing around it would end in death, major injury, or another dead end. The day before the helicopter of the local mountain rescue team had landed in Gavarnie, and I didn't intend to make use of their services.

At that moment I saw a group of people on a grassy patch a good way below me. Assuming that that was the path I was after and thinking that I had climbed blindly straight past, I scrambled down to it, by which time they had gone. I was surprised and slightly exasperated to find that it was the path I had already been following, but wisely decided that I probably ought to head back down it and find another route.

A good way back I met with a sort of alpine meadow, which seemed to have a path going in the other direction. I joined it, and found that it seemed to be going in the right direction, as well as being fairly well defined. The day was getting hot however, and I was getting through the three litres of water I was carrying fast. Still, I saw no danger yet.

It was not long however before this path also vanished, this time into a steep scree slope. At my wits end and obstinately refusing to turn back and try another route, I managed to convince myself that the path followed the contour across the slope and resumed at the grassy patch on the other side. After a moment's calculation I made a slippery and wobbly traverse, and found that the path did not in fact resume on the other side. My obstinate voice again pitched in at that point, telling me that maybe the path was just a little further up, and anyway, it would be harder to go down now that it would to go up. How wrong I was.

In any case, I set off upwards, the slope now becoming steep enough that I had to scramble on all fours, pulling myself up a steep grassy meadow, with the stomach-turning view of the valley behind me. At this point

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