Exploring the Pyrenees, Part III-A: Following the Cathars in the Comus and Mérens-les-Vals areas

Photo by Detmar

By James T. Carney

From Montségur we hiked to Comus, along a path that was probably used by the Cathars, since many of them did travel by way of Comus, which is now a very small village of maybe 1,000 people.
    The most difficult part of the hike – aside from a section a couple of hundred yards long where we hiked down through the mud left by a stream – was climbing 800 feet up to a pass through the mountains to Comus. Once in the pass, it was fairly smooth walking, although I was a little tired at the end of the day.

Photo by Detmar

Photo by Detmar

    I wasn’t too tired, however, to have a couple of beers when we arrived at Ax-les Thermes, courtesy of the van that picked us up in Comus. Ax-les Thermes is a major tourist center and ski resort. I was rebuked by Julie – one of our traveling companions, Peter’s girlfriend – for wearing my hat in the restaurant at the hotel (where we had a great meal). I tried to remember to take my cap off at dinner.

Photo by Peter or Julie

The next day we stood with umbrellas at the train station waiting for the train we would take from Ax-les-Thermes to Mérens-les-Vals, where we hiked up a mountainside in an effort to get a view of Ariège River, which runs through Mérens, and the river valley. It was raining so we started off holding umbrellas (and I was wearing my poncho). This approach seemed a little incongruous but it worked. And, after an hour and a half, the rain let up.

Photo by Detmar

    We finally hit an area where we had to go up an extremely steep trail, which I found very difficult. David kept me at it, refusing to let me catch my breath and fall behind. Finally, we got to the top the mountain and entered a shepherd’s hut.

Photo by Peter or Julie

    It was freezing both inside and out, and I was more than happy to take two glasses of wine from our guide. I also consumed our normal lunch, which consisted of a ham & cheese sandwich in a large loaf of French bread, or baguette. It was quite delicious, and I wolfed it down. as I did on every day of the trip; variety in lunch food was not to be expected. Indeed, it was the thought of wine that generally kept me going, until lunch at least.
    We were supposed to have a beautiful view of the river and the valley below, but being up in the clouds, we couldn’t see anything until we descended partway back down.

Photo by Detmar

    Once we got lower we could see several huge condors flying on the heights in hopes of spotting prey below. We hiked down without event (I never had a problem going down – just going up) and had beer at our guide’s house in Merens before taking the train back to Ax-les-Thermes. Our guide – François – was a tremendous person, extremely knowledgeable and informative about the area where he had lived all his life. This day’s trip had little to do with the Cathars, but it afforded an interesting expedition not involving vans or a change of hotels for two days, which obviously reduced the expense of the trip.

Copyright © 2019 by James T. Carney