Further: Le Chemin (de la Liberté)

Words and landscape photography by Camille McMillan.

I look for man's marks in the landscape. I see the landscape like a painter's canvas, human activity are the brush marks. The roads, the trees, houses, ruins, stone walls and rocks.

In the Pyrénées we have a constantly changing landscape. Man used to change the landscape but not so much now. Now, it is nature that is changing the mountains and reclaiming the Pyrénées. It was said of the Pyrénées, 'If it was not grown it was mined'. Everywhere you look, the mountains are littered with man. Buildings, paths, walls and terraces for animals to graze.
The mines changed the typography of much of the mountains and later the ski stations terraformed the contours of the mountains.

Now the change is more to do with the loss of control of the landscape. Nature taking back, consuming man's work, our marks.
Of course, man is still changing the landscape, but now it is more of a response to the changing environment. The flora and fauna changing, seasons no longer as defined as they were. The weather is more fluxed. Water sources are disappearing.

I follow old paths, find old routes that have been neglected, routes that could once have been major roads before the advent of mechanized vehicles, before the car and bicycle.

Often I look at a valley and try to see how it worked before the dynamite and the tarmac created the modern reality. All the easy routes over the mountains and borders have been tarmacked. An irony I find with road cycling is that the excitement the roadie has, is the joy of crossing the ridge or border at the easy point of the mountain. I look for the road that was not tarmacked. A highway that was once mighty, vital and busy, but now just for walkers' joy and not much more.

The Pyrénées event this year, Le Chemin (de la Liberte), is me traversing the length of the mountain range, using ancient routes and the modern routes. Treading where the ancients once walked, following where the modern heroes once rode, where St James once walked and where Christophe repaired his forks.

Many of you are probably still wondering though, what exactly is Further Pyrénées Le Chemin? We're none the wiser, just like the riders, and that's part of the magic. All we know based on previous editions of the race in the Pyrénées is that those racing will be treated to terrain that is equally tough as it is beautiful and remote. Riders will ride the length of the mountain range with a few familiar checkpoints and parcours. The curfews that have become a distinct feature in this race are still in.

You can follow the action with Dotwatcher here, and look back on a previous edition of the race here.