Above you can see me and a sleeping bear in the mountains!!! Scary!!! In our second week in France we went into the mountains and explored the Midi-Pyrenees a bit. We were a few days ahead of the Tour De France and saw a lot of places those crazy cyclists would soon ride through. One place - a peak of 2115 meters struck me! I can't believe those bikers ride down tat mountain after reaching that peak. All I could imagine was death after death of falling biker - building up too much speed and falling off the cliffs! I don't know how often that happens but surely it must sometime. Those guys are daring! Amazing athletes!
Well there, we did see someone tumble down a cliff. It was really scary. My daughter and husband walked up what seemed like a small mountain. I watched from below. There was a family next to me watching their 4 kids go up. When the kids were ready to come down - one took a step and he just stumbled and started rolling - not in a smooth way - down this mountain. He hit hard and for a second it looked like that was it - this poor kid was going to roll hard and heavy down this mountain to his death right before his parents' eyes and in the view of all of us onlookers. Time stood still as I watched from below and my husband watched from above. Nobody could do anything! I heard the mother cry out in agony and fear. And then I couldn't see the boy anymore - he landed somewhere flat and luckily soft. It was really dramatic. I hope I never see that again. In the meantime, his other brothers and sisters froze and were then afraid to come down the mountain themselves. One older one moved down to his fallen brother and after a while we saw the two. They inched down together on their butts - totally fearful. The boy was okay in the end - hurt I am sure. What a day that poor family must have had! From below - it really didn't look like a high mountain hard to come down. My daughter went up alone at first and it all looked okay. Thankfully though - my husband followed after her and could help her down the mountain - because one wrong step and you could fall like the boy we saw did. Scary! Only people who know what the are doing should try these things! I'm so afraid of hurting by back by falling hard that I hardly hiked at all. I'm just too afraid to slip. I'm glad I trusted that fear inside in this case and didn't go up that 'little" mountain. My daughter said she felt sick coming down it.
It was beautiful!!
One of 20 bears that still exist in these mountains! Amazing to be able to watch these bears in action in a reserve for them. There is a lot of discussion about these bears and if they should be re-introduced as they are sadly dying off and nearly extinct in this region. Bring them back I say! They were here first! The land is theirs, not ours! But people say no! They don't want the danger. Nature versus man. Nature is amazing. I'm glad we got to be in the middle of all its glory.
We made it to the Col du Tourmalet! But not on bikes of course! It was amazing to see all the bikers making their way up the mountain! The Tour De France passed through a few days later.
Below, you can see a You Tube film of some of the route.
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