A few years ago, my friend and I went to France to go hiking in the mountains. We decided on going to the mountains near Lourdes because it didn’t seem to be as touristy there as compared to other more well-known areas in the Pyrenees.

We first had to fly to Toulouse, and then we took the train to Lourdes.

Once we got to Lourdes, we started making our way through the town toward the mountains.

Unfortunately, it started raining right then. We trudged through the rain along the roads until someone was kind enough and pulled over for us, offering us a ride.

It was nice to get out of the rain on the first day of our backpacking trip, and she got us much closer to the mountains. By that time, the rain had subsided enough that we could walk without getting soaked.

We managed to get to a lake that marked the entrance of the park, and we ended up pitching our tent behind some bushes where it was fairly hidden.

We stayed there for a couple nights while camping near the base and just doing “day hikes” around because we thought it wasn’t permitted to camp anywhere up higher, which is why we kept our tent down low where the foliage was thicker so my tent wouldn’t get discovered.

We eventually ran into a few French people who were using a tent higher up. I asked them if that was okay, and they informed us that as long as you didn’t stay in the same place for 2 nights in a row, then it wasn’t a problem.

Enlightened, we went higher and camped above the perpetual rainclouds that were plaguing us.

It was quite amazing. We were constantly getting rained on, bringing our spirits down. Knowing that we could camp higher, we started ascending the mountain more than a day trip could afford. There was a border that we passed through and we left the cloud we were walking in and, like day and night, the clear blue sky lay above us with the cloud below our feet.

We both really wanted to ascend some peaks, but the truth was, they were gnarly, and we would have needed climbing equipment in order to do so. Regardless, we still got pretty high up and managed to get a good view

Higher in the mountains, it was even clear and dry enough for us to make a small fire one night. However, the following night, a huge thunderstorm rolled in that managed to catch us. Much like when I was in the Alps, it was raining and thundering all night long. Additionally, the wind was pushing on my tent so hard that I needed to keep my hands up to keep the tent from collapsing down on us. It was incredibly exhausting, not only from the lack of sleep but also from having to fight back the wind with my arms all night long.

After that, the weather resumed being pleasant enough, and all together, we enjoyed about a week in the Pyrenees.

We then walked out of the mountain and made our way to the nearest town, Argeles-Gazost, where we got a hotel room and enjoyed a soft, warm bed and much-needed shower.

After sleeping, our flight back was the next day, and we decided we would go to Lourdes and stay the night there before taking the train to Toulouse the following day and flying back. We hopped on the bus and got to Lourdes and started looking for a place to sleep. No hotel had any vacancy. There was some sort of event going on and everything was booked out. We kept wandering around from hotel to hotel, but nothing presented itself. We did check out Lourdes a bit, though.

Without a place to sleep, we just went to the train station. We hung out inside until they kicked us out at night, so we had to sleep on the concrete behind the station. It was cold, uncomfortable, and there were a few suspicious characters walking around, but they did leave us alone.

The following day, we woke up and took the train to Toulouse, went to the airport, and flew back to Germany.

It was a lot of fun in the Pyrenees, and I would like to visit the Spanish side someday. I think I would like to approach the same general area from the other side of the mountains via Huesca, Spain.