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 ->