Morning Ride to Puigmal

Puigmal d'Err1 or simply Puigmal (pronounced Poutchmal) is a summit in the Pyrenees culminating at 2,910 m. It is located on the French-Spanish border, in the commune of Err in the Pyrénées-Orientales, and that of Queralbs in the province of Girona.

It is the highest point of the Puigmal massif and the second highest summit in the Pyrénées-Orientales after Pic Carlit.

It gives its name to the Err-Puigmal ski resort, located on its northern slope.

The groups -uix- and -uig- from Catalan are pronounced like "outch".

The word "Puigmal" is made up of the Catalan word Puig meaning "summit" (a term from the Latin podium which also gave the Old French puy and the Occitan puech). The second part of the word may come from a pre-Latin root *mal also meaning "mountain" or "pile of stones", but more probably from mala "bad, evil". The tonic accent on the first a, the second a has been muted. Mal is still used in the Pyrenees in the sense of "bad", it is also found in other places (pastures, springs, summits, slopes, etc.), hence the overall meaning of "bad summit", in reference to the nature of the soil made up of Cambrian sandstone schists, not very suitable for grazing.Read more