Pic Long

Overview

The Pic Long is the highest summit of its massif and one of the most mythical peaks of the Pyrenees because all the routes have complications and it's necessary experience in rock-climb (II and II+ in the easiest route).
The group Pic Long-Néouvielle have two massifs with several peaks over the 3000 meters and it's the only one completely in French territory in all the range. Of all the highest peaks of the 11 massifs of peaks of 3000m of the Pyrenees, the Pic Long it's the hardest and it's the dream of many mountaineers to climb this peak sometime in your lifes.

In old times the classic route was across the glacier but it's smaller each year. The chimney over the glacier have some rock-climbs of III (P.D.sup.) but in the bottom nowadays, without snow, the rocks to reach the beginning have one climb of IV-. The normal route don't exists for this reason but the two most popular routes nowadays are the ridge SE from the Pic Badet (P.D.+) and the ridge NE from the Dent Estibère Male (P.D.). Generally the normal route for the descent is to make a rappel in the chimney of the classic route (60 or 80 meters to the glacier) to evitate the descent across this exposed ridges (the rope is very advisable and useful to climb the ridges and you can use it to make the rappel).

Getting There

Cap de Long
From France:
-west and NW: Pau, Tarbes and we'll take the exit in Lannemezan to Arreau, St Lary Soulan (indication Tunnel de Aragnouet-Bielsa Espagne). D929 to St Lary and before Aragnouet in the village of Fabian is the road to Lac d'Oredon and Reserve Nature de Néouvielle. In the crossroad of the lakes we'll follow in left side to Cap de Long (right is to Lac d'Oredon and Lac d'Aubert).

-east or NE: Toulousse, from Toulousse in direction to Tarbes but in Lannemezan we'll take the same road.

From Spain:
-west and NW: go to France across Irun and take the road to Pau-Tarbes and we'll follow the same itinerary of west of France. It's longest but it had good highways (pay). It's possible the shortest route in direction to Huesca but you had some cols and the road is not highway.

-South, East: we'll go to province of Huesca. N240 to Barbastro and Ainsa. A138 to Bielsa. Across tunnel Bielsa-Aragnouet we'll entry in France. After the village of Aragnouet we'll reach Fabian.

Barèges-La Glère
This is the trailhead to the long route of West ridge or ridge d'Estibère-Male.

-Barèges is a small village in the west side of the famous Col du Tourmalet, between Luz-St-Saveur and Bagnères de Bigorre. The shortest access is from the highway to Tarbes. You take exit 12 to Lourdes, Argeles-Gazost, Pierrefitte, Luz-St-Saveur and barèges. Two km after Barèges is the road to Plateau de Lienz where the road ends and it begins the forest track of 4 km to the end in a small parking. The track follows but it's forbbiden to drive.

Red Tape

The Nature park of Néouvielle is a great area with rules for the accesses, activities and places of camping.

Camping

The places of camping permitted, withdrawing the tent at the morning, they are found properly indicated. In Cap of Long, trailhead of Pic Long, it don't exist places of camping, but we can spent the night in caravan or in the vehicle or even in vivac on summer. Further down in the road is found the free zone of camping of the Lac d'Oredon although the park garage is of payment. In this place is the barrier to access to Lac d'Aubert, closed in summer from 9:30 to 18:00, but don't exist routes to Pic Long from this side. It exists another camping area in the Lac d'Aubert.

Of course it's possible to lodge in the refuge-chalet of Lac d'Oredon or the villages as Aragnouet, Fabian, St Lary Soulan,…

External Links

Mendikat.net-Pic Long, very good information about the peak in spanish.
Mendikat.net-gps track and waypoints taken with my GPS Garmin Vista in summer in the route from Badet.

Images

View Pic Long Image Gallery - 29 Images