Tuc de la Messe

With a day of good weather forecast Susie and I headed off to Col de la Core this morning to climb Tuc de la Messe. the weather was warm and we made steady progress to l'etang d'eychelle...spotting a ringed ouzel and a vulture as ell as some new wild flowers en route.

After the etang the snow started to quickly appear on the ground, there are still some significant depths in the mountains (locally 2-3m). We spotted an isard from the cabane d'eychelle then followed some huge footprints all the way to the col de la crouzette. We thought a bear - but there were only 4 forward facing toes so perhaps a patou?

Onward through the snow, until finally summit, by which time the clouds had risen and we were looking across a sea of clouds.

 Still alot of snow above Milouga

 The descent was hot in soft snow and we got burnt. Eventually we entered the cloud layer but it was only a few hundred meter thick and we were soon in the clear again;

 Two vultures eyed our descent

6 hours and about 1200m of ascent.