La Munia

July 06, 2025

La Munia

La Munia - 3133M

585M Prominence

42.71492, 0.13183

July 6, 2025

HRP Day 16 stats

2677M Ascent, 2933M descent

41.46 KM

Day 16 of the HRP turned out to be a massive day. I completely altered my route for the majority of the day, as I wanted to try and climb La Munia. The night before I did a significant amount of research on this route, which is definitely a less popular route, as opposed to coming at it from the South East. I found a blog post about someone who had done it, so my confidence in passing directly through the Cirque de Troumouse and up to La Munia was even possible was much higher. I got an early start in the morning and waved goodbye to the village of Gavarnie. The morning started off with a harsh 1100M plus climb up to Hourquette d'Alan. thankfully it was cool in the morning, so It was not much of a sufferfest. I then hiked down many switchbacks and dropped down into a cloudy valley where I hiked along side a river called La Gave d'Estaube. Once I was nearly at Lac des Gloriettes, I started making my way East towards Cabane de la Vierge. From here I hiked my way through the Cirque de Troumouse on mostly non existent trails in wet grass, until I finally made it to a scree slope under the North West side of La Munia. I took a break here, then continued my way up the scree along a feint trail that led to two big rock towers called Les Deux Soeurs. Just before arriving at these towers, and to the right there was an obvious couloir, I followed this loose couloir which was constantly throwing rocks down. I tried to hug the right side of the couloir and use the solid rock on the side walls to climb. At the top of this couloir there was option to scramble some steeper, semi solid rock, or follow another couloir. I opted for the second couloir, which brought me to a patch with some dark colored scree, where I would have to traverse and then climb a short face section. This part was slightly exposed, but it was short lived and I found plenty of holds, so it felt relatively safe. On top of the face scramble, easy terrain opened up once again, and I followed a more or less straight shot up to Collado de la Munia. I had to swerve around and cross a few small snow patches, but this brought me up to the col. Once at the col, at 2840M, I dropped my bag and went for a quick and light out and back to the summit. After just a little while on the ridge, I was met with another short technical bit, that is called le Pas du Chat. It is a fairly blank slab that would require some delicate scrambling. Thankfully a few years ago some chain was installed, making this segment very simple. Once I passed the Pas du Chat, the ridge traverse was a fun and slightly scrambly route to the summit. There were a few false summit bumps along the way, so it probably felt longer than what it really was. It was quite windy, and clouds had been lingering around all morning, so I turned back from the summit and headed back to the col to retrieve me gear and continue on for the day. Retracing my steps on the West ridge was quite simple, and downclimbing the Pas du Chat was made very easy with the chain. I still had a big day ahead of me if I wanted to complete my marathon day and make it into Parzan before the grocery store closed, so I started downclimbing South on the opposite side of Collado de la Munia down toward Lagos de la Munia. The rest of the day would be a continuous 2000M descent into Parzan. It began with some highly erroded trails South of the lakes, then a long walk on a gravel road following a GR again took me down the valley of the Rio Real river. Eventually this long gravel road took me to a paved road, that switch backed it's way down into Parzan. The afternoon was tough, especially on the paved roads at the end, where my knees were really starting to feel it.

This website has a great report on the ascent route I took from Le Cirque de Troumouse, it is where I found the beta for my climb the night before: Randonnée Pic de la Munia 3133m – Les Topos Pyrénées par Mariano