Pic d'Anie, Mesa de los Tres Reyes, Pic de Peneblanque

June 27, 2025

Pic d'Anie, Mesa de los Tres Reyes, Pic de Peneblanque

Pic d'Anie - 2504M

841M Prominence

42.94430, -0.72073

June 27, 2025

Mesa de los Tres Reyes - 2446M

380M Prominence

42.91933, -0.72751

June 27, 2025

Pic de Peneblanque - 2385M

165M Prominence

42.92587, -0.71862

June 27, 2025

HRP Day 7 stats

1264M Ascent and Descent

13.64 KM

Day 7 of my HRP traverse was a bit of a different one as I actually made no progress at all on my traverse of the Pyrenees. Instead I used La Source du Marmitou as a base camp and went around to tag some interesting summits around the Larra national reserve. The landscape around here was extremely karst and the sharp limestone sucks every ounce of humidity out of the surroundings deep into the ground. I began the day by retracing my steps 200 meters up from camp back up the trail I had hiked the evening before. I then picked a gulley on the steeper south side of Anelarra peak. The ascent started with some basic steep scree, but then I had to make a few scrambly moves to work my way around some vertical limestone sections. Luckily the route I picked went quite directly, because I had no beta or GPX track for it. From the top of the ridge I started making my way North East towards the South side of Pic d'Anie. There was still not really a trail at this point, and the terrain was full of small ups and downs, consistently dodging huge man eating crevasses in the sharp limestone. About 300M from the summit of Pic d'Anie I found a real trail and there were some painted markers indicating the way. At this point, early on in the day, I felt a little unwell already, but didn't think much of it. It was all quite simple terrain from here to the summit, with a few switchbacks on scree terrain. I could have gone more directly, but at this point following the trail would just save time. I made it up to the peak quickly, and was all alone up there to enjoy the views. Unknowing of how long of a day this might end up being, I kept moving almost right away. I retraced my steps back down to the trail, and then descended the slightly scrambly bit using my GPX track from earlier in the morning. Once I made it to the signpost indicating Source de Marmitou, I took the sort of trail that went in direction of Mesa de los Tres Reyes. The trail was feint, but I did manage to follow it most of the time, the terrain was still rough even though it was quite flat. Eventually the incline picked up a bit and I made it to the base of what I would call the summit block, I tried going up the terrain that I saw at first, but I turned back after thinking to myself that the scrambling was getting a little spicy, and there must be an easier way up. There indeed was, and I just had to wrap around the summit block a little bit further to the South. From here the rest of the ascent was very obvious, and I was met with other hikers coming up from the more common route to the South. The last 30 meters or so were a little bit scrambly, but easy. The summit quickly got busy when I summited, and at this point I was quite ill and had a horrible headache. I stopped for a bit and drank some water and tried to choke down some food. I then left the summit and headed towards Pic de Peneblanque hoping to find a spot of shade along the way. The day has been hot, but not excessively hot and probably not over 30 degrees. I am not sure why I felt so ill, but it was progressively getting worse. I descended on the same route I ascended back to 2290M, and then split off to the North East. I went up and over a bump on the French and Spanish border called Pic du Col de Lhurs, and descended to the col between Mesa de los Tres Reyes and Pic de Peneblanque in France. I then found a spot of shade and had a good break. I decided that I was so close to Pic de Peneblanque at this point that I should just suffer a little more and go bag the peak. I trudged my way up the scree slope and aimed towards the gulley on the south side of the peak that splits the summit. The terrain was a little scrambly, but I made it onto the summit rather quickly. The split summit are two bumps that are of almost exactly the same elevation, and so close you can almost touch the other. I was fairly certain that the one I was standing on was the correct one, so I took a picture and started descending. I descended the gulley that was more West facing, and it brought me back to the scree. I then scree skied my way down roughly 200 meters of scree, and hiked the rest of the way into camp at La Source de Marmitou. I had originally planned to hike into Lescun when I got back, but instead I started having horrible symptoms of heat stroke. I was nauseous, delirious, had muscles aching, a pounding headache, was vomiting, and just generally felt unbearable. I spent the night trying to recover, eat and drink. The next day I woke up feeling much better and well enough to hike into Lescun where I would take a few days to recover fully.