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Any ideas about this route marker (above Lescun)?

Time of past OR future Camino
.
Lescun is a beautiful little village on a plateau (at about 900m?) surrounded by high mountains in the Western Pyrenees. It is only a couple of kilometres east and above the valley of the Aspe, where the Camino Aragones winds its way along the valley floor from Bedous up to the Col de Somport.
But west of Lescun, climbing another 1000m is the border with Spain. In October I found this faded marker for the Camino de Santiago at a crossing called Puerto del Palo.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/peregrino_tom/29876579011/in/album-72157674355621176/lightbox/
Of the routes indicated on the wooden signs next to it, I only know the GR11 - and obviously that could take you to Roncesvalles, which it passess on its way to the Atlantic (and indeed Irun). There's also something written on the marker which is now mostly faded away, so it's unclear what this might be.
I just wondered if anyone knew anything about this and whether it was a known or historical variant from the Aragones - or something entirely different?
Cheers, tom
minor edit because I don't know my east from my west!
 
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The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
Does this link help? http://vppyr.free.fr/pages_transversales/voies_aspe/voies_aspe.php

"L'itinéraire le plus ancien, celui du Puerto de PALO, lui redescendait un peu plus à l'OUEST, passant par SIRESA et HECHO, rejoignant le camino Aragonais à BERDUN ou Puente la Reina de Jaca."

Rough translation: "The oldest itinerary, the one of the Puerto de Palo, descended a bit more to the west, passed by Siresa and Hecho and joined the Camino Aragones in Berdun or Puente la Reina de Jaca."

SY
 
Flippin' 'eck! that didn't take long.
SY - looks like you've nailed it. The 653.3 marker confirms it too. Interesting that this should be the oldest variation of the route. I guess it's shorter, as the crow flies, than the Somport-Jaca way, but wilder and more hilly... perhaps there were other reasons for taking this route, like some chapel or hermitage along the way, who know, anyway...
Muchos Gracias, tom
 
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Wow, fabulous photos. Thanks for the link :)
 
Ha! I wondered if anyone might be curious about the rest of the photos.. Doug, Jill and Donal - glad you liked them. It was interesting for me going back to staffed mountain huts after a few years of camino albergues. In many ways they are very similar, though the huts are more expensive with all the food having to come up to the huts (I think they usually do a helicopter drop at the beginning of the season and then top up with mule trains during the summer). The thing about the huts is there's nowhere else to go to eat so you all sit down together (like in some of the best albergues IMO). I was taking the meals and usually camping outside and swimming in those wonderfully clear lakes - the huts don't usually have showers etc.
Donal, the tent is a Yama Swiftline.
AJ, thanks for the info - very interesting. Looking at google maps I can see how if you are able to cross the 1900m high ridge at Puerto de Palo / Cole de Pau, it might be fairly straightforward to follow the rio Aragon Subordan all the way to Siresa and then continue on it down to Puenta La Reina..
Best wishes, tom
 
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I if my memory serves me right, hiked through Lescun on the French GR 10, when I was doing a coast to coast trip of the Pyrénées. A lovely spot. I done all of this 50 day hike without a tent. There was a number of occasions where it overlapped or went close to Camino routes.
 
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Hi nalod - yes, your memory does serve you correct! GR10 and and High Level Route pass through lovely little Lescun. GR10 must have then taken over some wooded hills and down to Borce/Etsaut, then along the amazing Chemin de la Mature up to the lake and refuge at Ayous.
The HLR goes south and up into the higher mountains. You reach Puerto de Palo after a couple of hours where the camino marker is. But continuing on the HLR past Arles hut and lake, takes you down to Somport then very nearly back to the GR10 at Ayous before diverging right and heading back uphill to the Pombie Hut and Pic du Midi Ossau...
I'd truly love to go coast-to-coast one day, if the old body is still strong enough when I reach retirement age...
so you managed to stay in refugios and gites for the whole journey then?
Cheers, tom
 
Lescun is a beautiful little village on a plateau (at about 900m?) surrounded by high mountains in the Western Pyrenees. It is only a couple of kilometres east and above the valley of the Aspe, where the Camino Aragones winds its way along the valley floor from Bedous up to the Col de Somport.
But west of Lescun, climbing another 1000m is the border with Spain. In October I found this faded marker for the Camino de Santiago at a crossing called Puerto del Palo.
Of the routes indicated on the wooden signs next to it, I only know the GR11 - and obviously that could take you to Roncesvalles, which it passess on its way to the Atlantic (and indeed Irun). There's also something written on the marker which is now mostly faded away, so it's unclear what this might be.
I just wondered if anyone knew anything about this and whether it was a known or historical variant from the Aragones - or something entirely different?
Cheers, tom
minor edit because I don't know my east from my west!

I need to click the IGNORE button for you, Tom, because all you do is tempt me with yet another wonderful camino option. :)
 
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Lescun is a beautiful little village on a plateau (at about 900m?) surrounded by high mountains in the Western Pyrenees. It is only a couple of kilometres east and above the valley of the Aspe, where the Camino Aragones winds its way along the valley floor from Bedous up to the Col de Somport.
But west of Lescun, climbing another 1000m is the border with Spain. In October I found this faded marker for the Camino de Santiago at a crossing called Puerto del Palo.
Of the routes indicated on the wooden signs next to it, I only know the GR11 - and obviously that could take you to Roncesvalles, which it passess on its way to the Atlantic (and indeed Irun). There's also something written on the marker which is now mostly faded away, so it's unclear what this might be.
I just wondered if anyone knew anything about this and whether it was a known or historical variant from the Aragones - or something entirely different?
Cheers, tom
minor edit because I don't know my east from my west!
there is a short thread about this route with some cool links here https://www.caminodesantiago.me/com...-pyrenees-not-over-somport.59461/#post-691797.
 

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