Occabe

Occabe - 1466M

331M Prominence

43.03332, -1.10740

June 25, 2025

HRP Day 5 stats

1747M Ascent, 1326M Descent

26.28 KM

Day 5 of my HRP traverse started with some quite enjoyable hiking through some lush green scenery. It soon changed for the worse though and I began to move at a snails pace when I was faced with a good chunk of bushwhacking. The bushwhack was not a bushwhack by my usual standards, but the tall grass that was full of ruts and holes, spiky shrubs and ferns made the progress slow. The bushwhacking took roughly an hour and a half from the time I left the valley road. It was also extremely deceiving in this area to find a trail, as on the hillsides there is endless horizontal benches carved in by grazing animals that impersonate trails, but go nowhere. Eventually a real trail existed again, and took me to a col indicated as "Orgarate" on my Gaia map. From there my HRP route would normally detour around the peak. Instead I opted to cut my way up the south side of the grassy slope and add another 150 meters of gain to my day in order to tag the summit. I bypassed a small sub summit and aimed for an interesting rock formation on the summit. The summit was incredibly windy. It had been blowing hard all of last night and all day as well. Some thunder struck mot too far away from me, so I kept moving. The descent was much more gradual than the ascent, and I quickly merged back onto a trail. I then descended to chalet Pedro for a break before continuing with my day. I then took another break at Les Chalets D'Iraty, a popular stop point with some fancy cabins and a small supermarket. I hung out there for a while and talked to other hikers while I waited out a storm that never really came. Eventually, before it got too late, I kept on hiking and made it to a small shack just before the bulk of the climb up Pic D'Orhy. I pitched my tent in this shack as the storm was still predicted to come. The shack was full of holes and the floor was falling through, but it still kept my tent sheltered from what turned out to be a pretty gnarly storm with lots of thunder and high winds.

Early morning hiking in lush green valleys

Heading towards Occabe

Sign for Occabe 

Rock clusters on the summit of Occabe

Occabe summit, very windy

Making way towards camp

Almost at camp, right before Pic D'Orhy (center)

I set up camp inside this old shack for some shelter from the storm

Day 5 Route

Occabe close up