"By four o'clock, we are at the base of the Col d'Aspin and commence on the long curves that lead to its top. The valley behind extends as we rise ; new breaks and depressions appear, branching off right and left on all sides.
After a half hour, peaks begin to peep over the hills at our rear; they come up one by one into sight, each whiter and sharper than the last ; until the southern line is a serrate row of trhem, gradually lifted wholly above the nearer hills. The promised panorama is truly taking shape. We near at length the crest of the col.
The Pic du Midi de Bigorre will loom up beyond it, unclouded to-day, the drivers assure us, and we watch for a glimpse at last of that mythical peak, which we have skirted in cloud from Barèges to Bigorre and never yet once seen. We are just below the top of the col ; twenty feet farther will place the carriages on the summit, when lo, a huge rounded dome begins to rise slowly up beyond the edge, and as we advance lifts itself into the full form of the long sought Pic,-ten miles away to the west, yet looming out as clearly as if but across the valley. It stands alone against the horizon ;  there is no summit near to rival it ; the sides are dark and steep and almost snowless the summit is looking down upon Gavarnie,-upon Pau,-upon the wide march of the plains of France,-as upon us on the Col d'Aspin, eying us with its stony Pyrenean stare."

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Extract from : Dix, Edwin Asa (1860-1911). - A midsummer drive through the Pyrenees / by Edwin Asa Dix,... Illustrated. -  G. P. Putnam (New York), 1890. - Médiathèque André Labarrère – fonds anciens – Usine des Tramways - cote 99096R
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