GR20, late season treat!

See all pictures here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/101332091997406276515/Gr20Pics?authuser=0&feat=directlink



During my hike in the Pyrenees a friend told me about the GR20 trail in Corsica (an Island of the coast of Italy and France). It was supposed to be one of the toughest trails of Europe. In September I was home and fully recovered from the HRP hike I had done earlier. In fact I already got a job to save up money again over the winter. It was after I got confirmation that I got the job that I had 2 weeks of free time on my hands, In a flash I remembered the GR20. Within 24 hours I basically booked my flight and was at the start of another long trail. The GR20 is a 180 km trail that crosses the mountain chain that is on top of Corsica. The guide I had bought said it was easily doable in 16 days (16 stages at least). Since I had 11 days of hiking I would have to do it a little bit faster but I wasn't worried, since I still had my trail legs from the previous summer.

The plan was to take a train to Amsterdam, then fly to the capitol of Corsica (Ajaccio) and take a train to Bastia and find a hotel there so I could get going early the following morning. It was a very long day of waiting; 6 hours in Amsterdam Airport, 5 hours in Paris airport, followed by the announcement that the plane was delayed...damnit! so I missed the last train to Bastia, which meant I had to take the morning train in stead. Nevertheless after taking the morning train and a short hitch from Bastia to the starting point I was ready to go!

Church at the starting point

Since this was late September all the huts where unstaffed. They remained partly open, and you could use the gas and water they had. This turned out to be a very welcomed surprise. I was able to leave my cooking gear behind and just take a pot with me. It was very quite on the trail, I met about 5 people or so every day for the first week. They all seemed to have plans to hike in the summertime but where somehow delayed. I was baffled by this because this seemed to be the best time to hike it in my opinion. It was still warm, and the snow was gone, and the huts are still open and you don't have to pay for them.

There was an interesting section called the Cirque de la solitude which seemed to frighten everyone. It's basically a dip between two peeks with very steep climbs and descents and no way down except going back up to one of the 2 peeks. I didn't think it was to bad although I did have one close call at the beginning of the guide cables section. I forgot to take my gloves off and it was raining so it the guide cables where very slippery and I nearly fell, but after that wake up call I was very careful and didn't experience any problems. 

Guide cables at Cirque de la solitude

The first week there was a lot of fog and some days I didn't see anything at all! The GR20 is basically divided into 2 parts, the north and the south (I was going from the north to the south) and in the middle is a village (Vizzavona) where you can take a train to a bigger town to get food and stuff. One day before I got to Vizzavona I stayed at a very busy hut. There where about 15 hikers there when I got there. This was the most people I had seen together at one spot on the entire GR20. It was also pouring with rain outside and very cold so I could understand why everyone was there. There where some friendly Dutch guys there I could talk to. I had also been hiking on and of with a guy from Norway who was very friendly.

Some time later a man dressed in full cammo gear and carrying a backpack with a really big gun attached to it entered the shelter. He said something in French and went back outside. Someone translated for me that there where 17 soldiers headed this way and they needed a place to stay since they didn't have tents. Apparently they where from the French military and it's a tradition to hike the GR20 at least once if you join the service. As a result every single square inch of the 12 man shelter was used to sleep about 40 people...

The next day was really windy, me and the other dutch guys figured it must have been at least a 10 on the beaufort scale. After I got to Vizzavona I took the train to Ajaccio and stayed there for the night. The next day I looked at the forecast and saw that it was finally clearing up. The next week I would have sunshine all the way to the end, awesome!

Beautiful landscape on the north part

The last part of the trail was really really nice, the mountains where not very high or spectacular but the forest surrounding it was really nice and the autumn colour scheme was an added bonus.

During the last 5 days of the hike I had pretty much teamed up with 3 other guys. 1 guy from Norway who I mentioned before named Peter, another from Canada named Ben and another from Estonia who had some interesting stories, he was an ultra runner who had done a lot of races all across the globe.

Shelter life

There was a certain relaxedness about this trip that I didn't have on other trips, and I think it was because it was out of season. Everyone who showed up during this time frame pretty much all had the same mindset of being able to not worry about making it to the next shelter in time or before the rain. I really liked it. This was a pretty small trip, I only did 9 days of hiking, so the finish point didn't feel that special to me. It was only Ben who kind of saw it as a victory, and credit to him he did seem to have it pretty hard a couple of days before the end but he pulled through at the end and finished the same day as me and the others.

After the finish point

Final hitch

After the finish point I actually had 1 day left which I really didn't expect. Anyway I went with the guy from Estonia to the coast to find a beach and a hotel which was open (very hard to do out of season!). We ended up at a resort paying a third of the normal price for an insanely luxurious stay including an all you can eat buffet and breakfast, wohoo! After a swim in the same ocean I finished my previous HRP hike in, I headed once again for Ajaccio to fly home. This trip was exactly what I needed to finish a fantastic hiking year. Here's to 2013, and let's keep on walking in 2014!

GR 54 - Grenoble

After I had finished the HRP I decided it would be fun to hitchhike back to Holland. After a cooling down period of 7 days in Barcelona (which was near the endpoint of the HRP, so why not right?), I headed towards home.

As luck would have it I found someone who was going towards Grenoble pretty soon. It was a bit out of the way but I figured I might as well go since I've never been there. The guy who drove me told me all about what kind of city it was and it seemed like a nice place to stay for a day or 2. One thing led to another and I decided to stay in Grenoble for an extra day and look for hiking routes in the area.

I soon found out about the GR 54. A circle route going around one of the big 4000 meter high mountain areas which the Alps is known for. It was the "massif des Écrins".

The route was fairly easy going, and a little bit to much roadwalking for my taste, but quite nice nevertheless. It took me about 7 days. The temperature was quite hot which made it a little hard, but luckily there where plenty of villages along the way with water springs. I also saw a bunch of people riding on donkey's on the trail, which was surprising.

All together a nice trail, but I don't think I will be back to this region soon.

I will upload pics soon!

HRP 2013, Post trip report (PART 3)

Pictures from my HRP trip: Picassa link

Video of HRP trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21DkUnScqhw

The walk from Gavarnie to Salardu was the most intense (and rewarding) section so far. And according to the book the next section would be much of the same, so I was excited. Salardu was a very nice place with a public pool and rarest of all in the Pyrenees: an actual library, I was really happy to contact some people and upload some pictures of my trip so far. As we did after each section we took a rest day in Salardu. For food there was a bigger town further down the valley just a 20 minute bus ride away (again, Joosten doesn't mention this in his book, the main reason being he hates everything but rocks and trees). We would also have to carry food for 9 days, which was annoying but I guess if your gonna carry extra weight it might as well be food!

After Salardu we would be entering Andorra. In the book it was described as quite a desolate place with few markers, but we found quite the opposite. Where before Andorra we did not see a lot of people because of the unusual snow height for this time of year, in Andorra we saw quite a few group hikers, and with the newly added paint flashes we had no trouble finding the right way. The scenery was also nothing like the book had described... it was much much better. It was unbelievable, It was the first time I could sort of relate to the author of the book because you do kind of look around and think why do we need all these towns and buildings when you have mountains like this?! The trail was also very nice, and because of the recent (2008 I think) re painting of the trail we had no difficulties finding our way.

After 8 days of carrying food and not eating any hot meals I was really looking forward to the next town. After a descent which seem to take very very long we finally arrived in a little place just outside the border of Andorra called L'Hospitalet-près-l'Andorre. It had a hostel, 1 restaurant, 1 small shop and a train station, which made it a popular starting point for hikers and cyclers. When we limped into town we immediately went straight for the restaurant, where they promptly informed us that they where out of bread....what?
And since it was siesta time we had to wait 3 hours for everything else to open. Since eating my hiker food I had left was not an option (I refuse to eat hiker food in town, it's just....wrong) I decided to try and find some WIFI in stead. After a long wait the hostel finally opened and we where greeted by a very nice lady who even knew some German. She made us a very nice meal and took us in a car to a large town that had several big grocery stores. We did not feel like taking a rest day in this town since there was....nothing of interest, so the next day we loaded up on food and headed out for the final section, an 8 day hike through the Catalonian mountains.

Hostel

The last week we hiked for a couple of days with a very interesting man from England, named Martin. He has hiked all over the world and was incredibly fit for his age. He seemed to be able to keep up with my downhill running mode forever, which is crazy considering he's 63 I believe.
There where two big climb left in this last section, one was called Pic Carlit. And it's apparently very famous in Catalonia. We decided to camp right below the final 1 hour climb so we could be the first ones up there in the morning.

View of Pic Carlit, from where we set up camp.

The next day we did indeed arrive first on the summit. It was an incredible experience, very calm and relaxing after an intense climb. From the top we looked at the other side of the mountain to see if we could see any hikers, we knew this was a popular mountain and a lot of people climb from that side of the mountain and go back. We did see some hikers, and then some more...and then a whole lot more. We could see at least 30 hikers in our first view alone! The first guy we met going up (when we where going down) looked very annoyed, I think he wanted to be the first one to the top haha. After that I started counting... to the base of the climb (which was like 5km) I counted well over 200 people. It was like the camino all over again. 1 good thing did come out of it, since it was such a tourist trap there where some restaurants at the bottom of the valley. After some beers we went on and away from the madness.

The next couple of days where filled with anxiety about finishing this incredible journey. Each day took us closer to the end and gave us the familiar mixed emotions of sadness and happiness about an ending adventure.

Only 8 hours to go!

We ended up hiking our last day with a bunch of other people congratulating us on the accomplishment. We where so exited we didn't care about the heat and lack of water. I think we took one 15 minute break the entire day. We also hiked 8 hours of trail in only 4 hours. The ending was kind of surreal, the transition between mountain life and basically beach party town life was very rapid. Nevertheless we had done it, 41 days, including 6 rest days, of hiking through the most beautiful landscape I've seen thus far.

The end...

After a dive in the ocean and a good night sleep it was time to say goodbye to my good friend Uli. He shared a big part of my adventure, and we've been through the best and worst of it together. He was headed north to see some cities in france while I decided to hitchhike to Barcelona to find a proper beach to lay on for a couple of days.

And so ends another adventure. This was one of more danger than I had thought, the snow scared me at first but after I learned to "trust" it more, it became a helping hand. The locals where very interesting people you won't find in a lot of places, they seem to truly get the mountain lifestyle. I met a lot of people, some of which I will never forget. I feel like I've learned a lot on this trip. Most of all the landscape was just unbelievable, It's good to know that such beauty exists somewhere.

HRP 2013, Post trip report (PART 2)

Pictures from my HRP trip: Picassa link
Video of HRP trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21DkUnScqhw

On the 1st of July 2013 I found myself staring at the Atlantic ocean thinking what the hell did I get myself into this time, but I definitely didn't feel as nervous as I did at the start of the AT. I felt at home and ready for action. Luckily I had already met my first people also doing the HRP on the bus towards the starting point in Hendaye, France. Phil and Angie, a couple from England who where doing the HRP to prepare for the Pacific Crest Trail (the AT's counter part on the west coast of the United States), so sort of the opposite of what I had done. They where really nice people, unfortunately they needed to buy some gas for there stove and that was hard to find. It was about 5 o clock in the afternoon when I arrived in . I had contemplated getting a hotel room for the night and leaving the next day (I was a bit loopy from the all the traveling) but I thought it would be nicer to camp right outside of Hendaye. So I bought some food and headed off. Straight away I had to get used to the way the guide book author (Ton Joosten) described stuff but after going the wrong way a couple times I got the hang of it. At the end of the day I found myself camping outside of Hendaye as planned and...what a view.

In the first week navigation proved to be the tricky part, since a lot of the trail was unmarked and there would often be side paths and dirt roads leading nowhere. At one point I came to an intersection of 7 different directions and the book told me to "just turn left". I had met some other people in the first couple of days. One of them was Uli from Germany, a really friendly guy I really got along with. We ended up hiking almost all of the HRP together and he became a good friend. Besides the tricky navigation the weather also played a big part in the first week. The first 3 days was dominated by foggy weather so it made navigating even harder. After that the sunshine finally came through but because we where still at low altitude (less then 1200 meters) it was really hot so it was important to carry enough water.

The first big "checkpoint" as it where was the mountain town of Lescun, France. There are not a lot of towns on the HRP trail, and restocking food is hard to do so you have to carry a lot of food with you. The day before Lescun was especially hard for me. I did not carry enough water and was low on food. There was a really big climb and it was very hot. We also saw our first snow there, which was extremely unusual according to the people we talked to in Lescun. It was so hot we had to stop and cover ourselves in snow to cool down. After we finally reached to top of the ridge we could see the crazy descent we where faced with. We would go from 2000 meters to 300 meters altitude in about 2 hours. The first part of the descent was snow covered and took some courage on my part to slide down. But once I got the hang of it, I really enjoyed it.

Day 8, our first snowfields

After Lescun we would be entering the high mountains. The next town was Gavarnie, a tourist trap place, 7 days away from Lescun. Most people don't like these tourist trap places, I sort of do because it means there will be plenty of food to buy and that's what makes me happy! Anyway on with the story.

The second week absolutely blew me away, the landscape was breathtaking. This is also where Uli convinced me to climb my first 3000 meter peak (which was not on the trail but close to it). The view up there was one of the best views I've ever seen. The climb up there was probably also the most dangerous of all the climbs on the HRP. According to the book it was "easy scrambling to the top", both Uli and I found it much more difficult, and figured the author of the book was on either drunk or on drugs while writing the book. For instance in the last section of the book there is Pic Canigou and the author goes nuts warning you how dangerous it is, and to be honest it's a piece of cake.

In gavarnie I stayed in a nice hotel, and the owner kept insisting I go on this 2 hour hike to go see a waterfall. I kept trying to tell her I was not a tourist and I would rather shoot myself then go hiking on my rest day, but she didn't understand. Uli and I also met up with a guy we lost track of in week 1, it's crazy how often you meet people you never thought you'd see again.

A tricky section of the HRP

After gavarnie, the next stop would be Salardu, Spain and it was 9 days away. So with 9 days of food(!!!) on my back I took off. The first couple of days where really nice, with beautiful weather and gorgeous views. There was a section after that, that required crampons and an Ice pick to pass over. Since I didn't have either (to heavy!) and because of the extreme amount of snow both me and Uli opted to take the GR11 variant. We joined up with two guys from spain and had a couple of awesome days. One of the guys told us his story of being rescued from the mountain by helicopter only 2 days before we met him. I had seen the rescue helicopter fly over every now and again. I myself got into trouble once during this section. I reached the top of a ridge and had to go down the other side, but I kinda thought I could take a short cut. Technically it was a short cut...just a little extreme. I was stuck and could either climb back up or try to go down an almost 90 degrees mountain face. Even after hearing the rescue helicopter story from the Spanish guy I still chose to go down (idiot!), luckily I didn't get hurt. The "short cut" did take about 1 hour longer then the normal route though...

This section also had some pretty nasty sections of snow/ice that where very sketchy. Including a 30 meter stretch which took us about 20 minutes to do. This was one of those times where I really wished I was home in stead of holding on to the side of a slippery mountain slope with a 50 meter fall to my left. Oh well, the trail goes on...

The next post will be about the last part of the trip!

Continue to part 3 ->

HRP 2013, Post trip report (PART 1)

Pictures from my HRP trip: Picassa link
Video of HRP trip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21DkUnScqhw

I'm back! I finally took the time to update this blog (mostly because I have some usefull things to write about now). My big adventure for 2013 has been doing the HRP. It stands for Haute Randonnée Pyrénéenne. It's an 850 km trip through the toughest landscape the Pyrenees mountains have to offer. There are 3 main hiking routes through the Pyrenees. On the french side you have the GR10, on the spanish side you have the much dryer GR11 and right in the middle is the HRP, it is considered the hardest trail in the area because of the number of peaks it goes over.

The main difference between it and the AT is that this is much more of an adventurous trail, with more dangers. Where on the AT you would see idiots hiking in flip flops and jeans who had no idea what they where doing, on the HRP it would be different. I mean you still see the same idiots (me included I guess), but on the AT you have the time to learn and adjust, on the HRP you don't. Of the small number of people I met doing the whole HRP about half did not make it through the first week. Now this did have something to do with the amount of snow there was. There was a lot of it! I was told by some locals that they had never seen so much snow at this time of year before, which kinda scared me at first because I had no experience with hiking on steep slopes covered in snow.

My gear

I chose the HRP mainly because it seemed to fit my schedule and it was a good step up from the AT hiking wise. The HRP is not marked, it follows parts of other trails that are marked but not always. About 30 per cent of the trail is really hard to follow and requires map reading and use of compass. After 2 weeks of preparing and I was ready. I planned out the route, and figured it would take me no more then 2 months. I bought a ticket and before  I knew it found myself standing on the beach in Hendaye, France.... see my next post for the report on the first part of my trip.

Continue to part 2 ->