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Park your car at the side of the Col d’Ech (or Cami d’Ech) road at the starting point, not far from a lovely house.
(S/E) Continue on foot along the track heading westwards. There are no signposts, but it is impossible to go wrong. The track becomes tarmacked again near the pumping station. Continue uphill to the hamlet of Ech (two small houses), between which the Moules stream flows.
(1) Leave the two houses and the boundary wall on your left and head right, along a track just wide enough for a car, heading north-east towards Lourdes. On the IGN map, the path is shown as a solid black line and then a dotted line.
Stay on the track and walk past a gate and the boundary fence of the vast Ech estate on your left, with a house in the background which you will go round at the back.
You’ll reach a fork in the road (a more open area where our path continues straight ahead, a path branches off to the right through the ferns towards Castet Miù, and there’s a lovely view over the Batsurgère Valley and the western face of the Béout). You’ll sometimes find cars parked here.
Take the narrow path straight ahead, which begins a climb due north.
Right at the north-eastern corner of the Ech estate, you’ll reach a livestock gate (elevation 728) which opens onto the Soums d’Ech (913m) and Castet Miù mountains.
This mountain range is known locally as ‘the mammoth’, as when viewed from the north its shape resembles that of the animal.
Continue climbing and, as you make your way through the ferns, head west as soon as possible, following paths that are more or less well-marked (the dotted IGN path is no better marked than the others).
(2) In a small valley (with a shrub visible from a distance) lies a beautiful spring (not shown on the IGN map).
Carry on due west along the contour line. Numerous erratic boulders dot the route.
Leave the cliffs of Soum d’Ech, a popular climbing spot, in the distance to your right.
When the downward slope becomes steeper, continue close to the tree-lined hedge, which is flanked by a fence. You will then reach a dense copse, in the middle of which lies a gate in the fence.
(3) Before you go through it, you have reached the Col d’Ech!
NB: Please note, the area is quite wooded, so you may not necessarily realise you are on the pass. With the gate behind you: to the left ahead, the steep slope leading up to the Mail de Portes; to the right ahead, a mountain pasture overgrown with ferns; and in the distance to the right, the climbing cliffs of Ech. Opposite, there’s a lovely view over the Gave de Pau valley, the Subercarrère woods, the Lourdes forest, all the way to Peyrouse, and over Lake Lourdes.
For the return journey, go past the fence at the gate or alongside it via the low walls.
Head back down to the Cami d’Ech and its two little cottages, clearly visible from a distance, across grassy pastures and along a very well-marked path. To the right of the path lies a peat bog, part of the ‘Granquet, Pibeste and Soum d’Ech’ Natura 2000 site and used by a cattle farmer.
Keep your distance from the herds where necessary.
In summer, the grasslands along the path are completely dry. However, in spring they may be waterlogged.
(1) Head for the junction where the two small cottages stand.
Then follow the same path as on the way there to return to the car park (S/E).
Visorando Member
Moderate 
Difficult 
Tourist office
Very difficult 
