Refuge de la Soula to Refuge du Portillon

In the middle of the night I awoke to rain, thunder and lightening.  In the morning it alternated between clearing and more rain with big booms of thunder. What to do? I checked the weather again. It looked liked this storm would end at 11. We decided to go. Then it poured. Once it eased up we left at 9:15. 

And of course it started dumping rain again in a half hour. With the rain was thunder and lightening. Then it would stop. Then start up again. But at 11 it stopped for the rest of the day. I was able to use my umbrella in hands free mode all morning. I just left it up even when the rain stopped momentarily. 

It was gorgeous. The uncertainty of the weather combined with the stunning scenery made this my favorite day so far. The views were grand and then the fog would come in. Then the fog would lift. It was magical. I often couldn’t get my phone out fast enough to capture the moment. There were a lot of moments. And I took LOTS of photos.
The temperature was perfect for wearing a rain jacket and pants. Even when it wasn’t raining I often had my hood on because of the wind and I didn’t want my hat to blow away. 

We continued our hike up.

We got to the top of Col des Gourgs-Blancs and this awaited us on the other side….

Then we had to walk down a boulder field and back up to the Col du Pluviometre (which means rain gauge) which is above the col.

 

We were supposed to go to the next high point, Tusse de Montarque. We missed this. It was really confusing which way the book was telling us to go. We went a much longer way from the col to the refuge. We earned our wine!

 

Eventually we arrived at the Refuge du Portillon. I checked in with my inReach and immediately got a phone call from Wired and Paul. The storm was worse where Wired was and she wisely took a 2nd zero.

This is a nice uncrowded  refuge. We have our own room for 10. We didn’t interact much with anyone really. Dinner wasn’t as good as the duck confit last night. I checked out the beginning of tomorrow’s route. This is it…..