Pinet (French normal)

Overview

The route across the mountain hut of Pinet is the french normal route nowadays. The people generally make the climb in two days sleeping one night in the hut.
If you want to climb in only 1 day the slope is 1900 meters and the total climb has 6hours+5 hours... it's really hard.

Getting There

Trailhead: parking of L'Artigue (1185m)

Approach: In Tarascon sur Ariège we'll take the road D8 to Vicdessos for 15km. After 10 km we'll reach the villages of Auzat and Marc. We'll turn to right to the little road of L'Artigue, the parking is located 1km before of the village.

Route Description

Day 1: L'Artigue-Pinet
Slope: 1060m
Time: 2h 45min

The path goes near of the river to a bridge. We cross the river and we follow the signals to left side. We entry in the forest of Fontanal and we gain slope in a hard path. We exit of the forest at 1660m in Orris de Pla Nouzère (1h30min).
We follow the path in the hillsides of the peak Montcalm with some little rivers. After a little descent we reach the spun what descent from the lake of Pinet. After a little rock climb very easy in the spun we reach the lake and refuge of Pinet (2225m).

Day 2: Pinet-Pica d'Estats
Slope: 950m
Time: 2h 30.
The path marked with paint begin in left side of the lake leaving the hut. The path is good to the end of the little valley. Over the etang (lake) d'Estats we turn to left (east) to the etang (lake) de Montcalm (2560m, 1h). In south direction we go near of the small river to a col (saddle) in west side of peak Montcalm (2900m). In right side we see the coumette d'estats and the little lakes and as well the route what bring to Port of Sotllo. We walk in southeast direction to the area of confluence of routes under the North face of Pica d'estats (south) and col de Riufret (east). In this point we have the two options of the normal route to climb to the summit across the North climb of rock (grade I) or the path to Col de Riufret.

Essential Gear

Crampons and ice-axe in winter and early in the season. The access to the Coumette d'Estats is complicated with a lot of snow and some days exit the risk of avalanches on winter.

External Links

Madteam-Pinet some images of the mountain hut.
makalu-pica GPS coordinates of the most important waypoints of the route. Description in spanish.
Challenge des 3000m ariégeois (Montcalm) the impressive challenge with the climb of Pica across Pinet from Auzat. 42,5 km! slope of 2580m! Text in french. The winner ascent to Pica d'Estats and return generally in 4h30!!!!!!
XV Challenge Montcalm interesting pictures of the XV Challenge to Pica d'estats from L'Artigue. Text in language of Catalunya.

Images

View Pinet (French normal) Image Gallery - 2 Images