"Thursday 2nd August 2018. An ascent of Pic du Midi de Bigorre 2877m/757m, from Col du Tourmalet, Hautes Pyrénées, France. 14.3km, with 770m of ascent. 4hrs 30mins. Pic du Midi de Bigorre (see at https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pic_du_Midi_de_Bigorre) is one of the most notable of the peaks in the Pyrenees, for a number of reasons. It sits on the northern extremity of the range, close to the low-lying plain to the north, and therefore dominates the view from that direction. In the days before the techniques for mountain surveying were developed in the 18th Century it was considered to be one of the highest peaks in the range. The true highest mountain is, of course, Aneto (in Spain) at 3,404m – considerably higher. The Pic du Midi is further notable for the large meteorological and astronomical observatory that sits on the summit, vying for space with the tourist facilities created following the building of a two-stage cable car route to the summit in the 1950s. This makes the summit rather a built-up area, resembling, when seen from below, one of the settlements pictured on other worlds in science fiction stories. After spending the last few days hiking on and below the..." — marktrengove • Aug 2, 2018