Lac de Tracens walks

This is a very accessible walk. After following a valley where irises bloom in late July, it climbs up to the Lac de Barrage dets Coubous. It then winds its way from lake to lake, across the meadows of a high-altitude cirque.

This relatively easy hike offers many attractions: scenery, several lakes along the route for fishing enthusiasts, and the option of completing a circular hike via the Col de Tracens, returning to the starting point.

Above Barèges, winter shrouds the Aygues Cluses valley in silence. Beneath the snow-laden mountain pines, we tread softly; only the torrent accompanies the ascent, with the occasional track of a ptarmigan or a chamois in the powder snow. The Madamète lakes, so popular in summer, now lie dormant beneath their layer of ice, and the path is nothing more than a series of tracks to follow in the fresh snow.Higher up, the valley opens out and reveals the horizon: at 2,657 metres, the Pic de Madamète offers a 360° panoramic view of the entire Néouvielle massif, with its jagged ridges and string of frozen lakes. The descent via the Coubous Lakes completes the circular route in the low afternoon light.A wonderful winter’s day on snowshoes – challenging and spectacular – on the edge of a nature reserve which, for a few months each year, reveals itself only to those willing to explore it on foot. I hope I’ve made you want to join me!

Above Barèges, the mountain landscape changes completely as soon as the snow settles. From Tournaboup, the snowshoe route first ascends the Vallon d’Aygues-Cluses, a gentle track that winds its way between the ridges, to the recently built refuge and the old shepherd’s hut. The route then climbs up slopes of varying difficulty towards the Pic de Gourguet, at nearly 2,600 metres: in winter, the summit is reached in a silence disturbed only by the occasional tracks of chamois. From there, the view stretches far into the distance — the Néouvielle, the Pic du Midi, and the slope down into the Coubous valley. The return route via the Col de Tracens takes you past a succession of lakes lying dormant beneath the snow: Tracens, La Jonquère and Les Coubous. A simple, challenging and rocky circular route, where the winter season sweeps away the crowds and strips the massif back to its essence.