Pyrenees: national park agent says two novice hikers following a ChatGPT-generated route and map were lost and exhausted in the wrong valley above Cauterets
On the evening of 21 July 2026 an agent of the Pyrenees National Park met two young women hiking above Cauterets (Hautes-Pyrenees) who were exhausted, worried and lost: they were looking for the Lac d'Estom but were in the Marcadau valley. According to the agent's account to ICI Bearn Bigorre and other outlets, they showed him the route and map they had obtained from ChatGPT, and he found that nothing on it was right: walking times, altitudes and the positions of lakes and a mountain hut were wrong, with the lake placed three valleys from where it is. He redrew a shorter itinerary suited to novices; no injury or call to rescue services is reported. The account comes from the agent; the hikers were not interviewed and the chatbot conversation was not published.
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 27/10/2026