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.
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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| After the finish point |
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| 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!
