The French, Spanish and Andorran Pyrenees

Classic Pyrenees Freedom Trails – Long weekend and  week adventures

Follow a real ww2 escape route over into Andorra or Spain. Activate your adventurous gene on an affordable and exciting trip to commemorate or experience a WW2 escape. Understand how the escape lines worked and take the chance to be captivated by documented stories. These routes were tough and we can show you the ways taken by specific French, Spanish and Andorran resistance members who escorted pilots, jews and those avoiding the STO order to work. These are tough treks and not to be underestimated. You will normally be walking for 6-8 hours per day in challenging mountainous terrain. We can offer props and scenarios en route and have helped over 500 people escape to freedom since 2014! An ideal challenge to raise money for charity, re-live history, see and understand how mountain people connect. Also, a chance to explore what you can do and feel what it might have been like to do it at the time with less honed equipment.

The Pyrenees can really help de-stress, taking in the mountain air and feeling immersed in nature, forgetting what lies back at home and making it easy to feel camaraderie with your fellow escapees. Experience mountain rock crests, deep blue lakes and a sense of being away from it all as wewalk more than 3 hours from the nearest road. 

We start and finish in comfort and we have a fantastic back up team to make your stay as comfortable as possible while experiencing wild and remote parts of the Pyrenees. We will arm you with a book list to engage you before arrival here. 

Pyrenees Border Treks

Trek to the border of Spain in the wild and beautiful vicdessos valley

Trek to the Andorran border at the Port de Rat

Historic treks

In the footsteps of Charamagne to the Port de Salau (2100m)

Cathar castles, roquefixade to Montsegeur 

The resistance, follow a Freedom trail for a day and find out how the resistance network worked including escape and evasion game

Walk and relax around Ax les Thermes or Foix

• Pyrenees mountain air walk and spa indoor spa or outdoor natural spa
• Yoga and trek (Barglliere vallay, Mt Picou and Foix)
• Trail run and spa (Ax)

Freedom Trail Long weekends and Freedom Trail Experience

These are shorter or les arduous routes with supported camping or hotel accommodation such as on the Coastal Freedom Trail. You won’t be venturing so far from a road or comfortable or even luxurious living conditions. Carcassonne and Cathar castles take a less hilly journey but embraces local culture and quaint towns with superb gems en route.

We can also do a “chemin de la liberté” experience so that some of our group can go so far on the route, say to the halifax bomber (2100m) or stay less remote and then descend to spa and meet the rest in Spain. Ideally planned for not missing out on the highlight of getting into Spain, experiencing fine tapas, cocktails and a distinctly different local culture. This is ideal for those who don’t feel fit enough to do 1500m of ascent in a day in mountain terrain, would like a more relaxed approach but nevertheless have a fascinating delve into the history, memorials and culture of France, Spain and Andorra.

Snowy Pyrenees – join us this Winter/Spring!

Bring on the snow! Don’t hold back! We are blessed to be fairly mobile to find the best snow conditions and environment for you to play or winter walk in. Somehow sound is dampened in the snow clad landscape creating a peaceful ambience and glinting crystals underfoot and stacked branches above only add to the experience. We offer group discounts to make this accessible to your family and group of friends. 

Not only are there some excellent mountain restaurants, magical beech forests and high frozen lakes to see but we have the Thermal Spa in Ax there in the programme and we can add in any of the following activities to make your trip as fun as it possibly can be:

• • Spa
  • Yoga
  • Ski
  • Massage
  • Animal track
  • Bird spotting
  • Sledging

3000m peaks and GR10

Take on a 300m peak or several in the grandeur of the Cirque de Garvanie, a UNESCO world heritage site. Taste the dramatically different landscape on the Spanish side in our col hopping, border crossing adventure.

We also offer a logistically difficult section of the GR10 or Grande Randonne in Ariege. We can support you in this and usually offer it self guided.