Cerro Castillo, Chile, November 28, 2015
When I was planning my farewell
tour of Europe for the summer of 2015, one of the things that I knew had to be
on the itinerary was hiking the famed GR20 trekking route in Corsica. I’d heard it being talked about for years by
hikers, often in hushed tones, and I thought it would make a fitting finale
after several weeks of warming up for it by hiking in the Pyrenees.
As detailed in the previous post,
the best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley (as Robbie Burns said). After Terri received the news of her
unexpected (and very un-Swiss) last-minute rescheduling of her Swiss
citizenship ceremony, originally scheduled for September 16th but
now postponed until September 30th, we frantically rescheduled and
rebooked and by the evening of September 3rd we were in another
2-euro 2-hour bus from Gavarnie (where we had received the e-mail that put us
into motion) to the nearest railhead at Tarbes and a cheap motel opposite the
station.
The next morning, September 4th,
we jumped on a morning train to Toulouse.
After leaving my big hiking backpack in a left-luggage office of
Byzantine complexity and incompetence at the station, we headed into town on
foot. One major objective was to buy
myself a new camera lens to replace my much-loved, much-used and now completely
broken Nikon 18-200 lens that had seized up as we left Cauterets a few days
before. We tried a slick professional
shop that didn’t have the 18-200, but had an even more impressive 18-300 mm
lens. I was sorely tempted, but the
prospect of having to buy all new filters (the 18-300 had a different diameter)
made me hesistate.
We strolled further into the
lovely historic centre of Toulouse, past the impressive Romanesque Church of
St. Sernin and past hordes of university students undergoing a frosh
week treasure hunt/ritual humiliation.
The main pedestrian drag, rue du Taur (named after a gruesome martyrdom involving a bull), was a buzzing, lively spot and we
had an unexpected Asian lunch that went down well. I made a fruitless sortie to another camera
shop, then walked with Terri down to the Garonne River. I was struck by the bilingual street signs,
written in both French and Languedoc (Occitan), the language of a civilization
in southern France destroyed by northern knights in the Albigensian crusade. Toulouse was an important Roman city
(Tolosa) before becoming a major centre of troubadour culture and the
capital of the Languedoc region. It’s
nice to see that heritage being promoted today in the city.
On our way back to the first
camera shop, we blundered into an electronics megastore, FNAC. They had a sale going on, and had the 18-200
mm lens in stock. I bought it, got the
VAT back and ended up saving a fair bit of money. Satisfied with my new purchase, we collected
my bag from the station and took the subway, tram and city bus out to our hotel
near the airport.
Modern Toulouse revolves around
Airbus, which has its main factory beside the airport. Outside our hotel, hundreds of Airbus
employees in high-visibility vests were cycling home from work. We dined on pate, wine, cheese and baguettes
in our hotel room and threw ourselves into bed early.
The next morning we caught the
bus and tram out to the airport and got on our Volotea flight to Bastia. I had never heard of the airline, a
Spanish-based budget carrier, and it marked the first time that I had ever
flown on (or even heard of) a Boeing 717; another money-saving feature was that
most of the flight crew were mainland Chinese.
At Bastia airport, we tried futilely to hitchhike to Calvi before
finally giving up and taking a long, slow bus-train combination. During our three-hour wait in Bastia town, we
bought a map and guidebook (to replace the ones left behind in Leysin for Terri
to bring back from her citizenship ceremony trip), had lunch and then took a
leisurely, spectacular train ride to Calvi, only slightly delayed by a large
forest fire whipped up by the gale-force mistral
wind. We got to Calvi after dark, found
a campground and went to bed.
Early the next morning, September
6th, we crawled out of the tent, packed up rapidly and shared a
truly exorbitant taxi with a Canadian couple, Maike and Brendan, to the
trailhead at Calenzana. For a 14 km ride
that took about 12 minutes, the fare came to 50 euros. In Corsica, as in much of the world, there
are no poor cabdrivers.
The start of the trek was
relatively straightforward, a 900-metre climb up a broad trail through typical
lowland maquis vegetation to the
Bocca u Saltu, a broad pass. We had
sweeping views down to the northwest coast, with Calvi a far-off citadel and
the Mediterranean a still azure blue, yesterday’s gales completely gone.
Terri on the first day, high above Calvi |
After a lunch of sardines and
bread, we set off on a long traverse and climb up through pine forests and over
granite boulders to another pass, the Bocca a u Bazzuchellu. There were sections of tricky scrambling and
even a fixed chain at one part, making for some challenging manoeuvring while
carrying a heavy pack. We took another break there before a final traverse,
partly through a long stretch of burnt-out forsts, to the day’s refuge, l’Ortu
di up Piobbu. We were unpleasantly
surprised to find almost every available tent site taken; September is supposed
to be the off-season for the GR20, but apparently not this year. As well, we learned that the previous day’s
fires and winds had seen the first section of the trail officially closed, so
there were two days’ worth of hikers setting out that day. We eventually found a site quite far downhill
from the hut, put up the tent, wandered uphill to the hut to sample some great
cake, and then headed back to the tent for a great meal of roesti and
sausage. I was carrying more weight than
almost any other hiker on the GR20, but at least it meant that we were eating
better than most people. We had a
post-prandial taste of whiskey watching fog roll in, enveloping the granite
peaks as the sun set.
First-night sunset |
Seriously steep terrain on day two |
We arrived to a scene reminiscent
of this summer’s footage of Syrian refugees arriving in Europe. The refuge, Carozzu, is located at a spot
lacking in flat land, and every likely tent-sized spot was already taken. Just
before dark, a young man dragged himself into camp, his knee cut to the kneecap
and his wrist broken by a six-metre fall; he was evacuated the next morning
after being stitched up by a doctor among the hikers. We ended up staking out a narrow spot, too
small to put up our tent, and sleeping out under the stars on our air mattresses. Our sleeping bags were soon soaked with dew,
although the moisture evaporated by the time we woke up the next morning. The views of the stars, watching the Milky
Way rotate slowly over our heads, were compensation for the lack of space.
Light coming to the Spasimata gorge |
We made a much more timely
getaway the next morning, setting off before 8 o’clock thanks to Terri having
mixed up some muesli the night before.
We knew that day three was supposed to be quite challenging, and we
wanted to give ourselves enough daylight hours to complete it. The fun and games began immediately, with a
swaying suspension bridge, the Passerelle de Spasimata, to cross before we
climbed steeply up a long box canyon, a route that involved lots of precarious scrambling
on huge steeply inclined slabs of pink granite.
We were in a landscape of pure rock, almost unadulterated by the green
of vegetation, tempered only by the crustal clear waters of the pools of water
far below us in the bottom of the valley.
It was challenging going, with lots of hands-and-feet scrambling up very
steep pitches. Eventually we reached a
tiny lake, near which I watched two moufflon (wild sheep)
grazing on the opposite bank, looking for all the world like a pair of Thomson
gazelle transplanted from Tanzania. By the
time I reached for my camera, the moufflon had slipped quietly into an
adjoining patch of bush from which they did not reappear.
Really? This is a trekking route? Day three |
We eventually, after almost four
hours, made our way to the Bocca Muvrella, a pass with breathtaking views down
both sides. From there on, although we
had little net vertical gain left, the day only got harder, with a tough
downclimb followed by a rugged traverse to the last pass of the day, another Bocca
whose name escapes me now. At times we had to take off
our backpacks and pass them down before climbing down gingerly. Any misstep, while not necessarily fatal,
would have meant a helicopter ride and lots of pain. It was physically and mentally draining, and
even the final downhill to the ski resort of Haut Asco was a long series of
careful short steps on sliding scree. It
was a profound relief to walk into the pine forests of Asco and finally swing
our legs freely and stride forward at a normal walking pace. We camped in a beautiful spot that evening
under pine trees, and slept the sleep of the dead.
On the way between passes, day three |
The fabled fourth stage of the
GR20, through the Cirque de Solitude, used to be the toughest stretch of the
whole route. However, in June this year
a big landslide killed 6 hikers in the Cirque, leading the authorities to close
this route. The alternatives are a bus
ride down and around the Cirque (and the next day’s stage too), or a long climb
almost over the highest peak in Corsica, the Monte Cinto. Shellshocked by the previous two days, we
opted for the soft option, and at 9:00 the next morning we boarded a bus for a
slightly hair-raising ride down the valley into the lowland town of Ponte
Leccio, through which we had passed four days previously in the train. A brief stop there allowed us to buy steak and
eggs for a slap-up dinner, before a remarkable road led us up through the Scala
de Santa Regina (“the staircase of Santa Regina), one narrow lane pushed
thorugh a precipitous gorge. It was
slightly white-knuckle stuff, with our driver aggressively forcing her way past
befuddled German tourists, but we suddenly emerged into an inland highland
basin, the Niolo, and hopped off the bus in Albertacce at 11:30 ready to
walk. The other hikers—Celine (one of
the Belgian students), Alban (a middle-aged Frenchman from Grenoble) with his
71-year-old father and 68-year-old uncle, and a Swiss student—soon left us
behind, but Terri and I didn’t mind. We
were revelling in the walk, through pine forests and open, rocky chaparral
reminiscent of Montana. It was a joy to
be able to stride along without constantly looking at our feet. We barely noticed the 600 metres of climbing,
and got to Castellu di Vergio, another ski resort, in enough time to take
steaming hot showers and do laundry. It
felt like trekking the way we were both used to.
Terri enjoying the easier walking on day four near Albertacce |
The one thing that continued not
to feel like trekking was my left hip. Every
night my hip locked up completely, and I could barely get to my feet. Getting out of the tent was an inelegant
affair, as I crawled like a commando through the door, rolled onto my side and
slowly got my right foot under me.
Finally, with agonizing slowly, I would straighten my left leg, wincing
in pain and hobble around. After half an
hour, I would be able to walk, and during the day my mobility wasn’t too badly
impaired, but rock climbing the toughest parts of the route was slow and
painful. I was at a loss what to do; I
took ibuprofen and aspirin, but this did little to make whatever was wrong get
better, and the next morning I would be doing my imitation of a 90-year-old
once again.
A distant view of Ajaccio and its coastline |
Col de San Pietru, above Castellu Vergio |
Terri and tiny equine friend, Lac de Ninu |
Day five scenery |
It was, as advertised, a long
hard slog form Mangannu to Pietra Piana.
We climbed steeply out of camp, up, up, up to a narrow gap in a steep
arête. So far the footing had been fine,
but the subsequent series of traverses and short up-and-down pitches was really
hard, with lots of scrambling on all fours, hopping across boulderfields and
occasionally lowering our packs down in front of us. With her sore leg, this was a painful day for
Terri, reducing her to tears at one point.
The scenery was stunning, looking
down on a series of tiny jewel-like lakes surrounded by a chaos of rock faces
and rockfalls. Eventually we made one
final traverse, climbed past a tiny hidden meadow, over a final ridge and saw
the refuge directly below us. The
clouds, mist and threat of rain that had dogged us all day dissipated and we
arrived in bright sunshine at the best campsite of the hike. Our tent site was below and away from the
main cluster, perched on the edge of a cliff giving epic views down the valley
and over the next day’s route. It was a
wonderful place to watch the setting sun light distant peaks aflame while
sipping some of the local wine sold by the hutkeeper.
Last evening of camping, Pietra Piana |
The view from Pietra Piana |
Lovely swimming pools on the last day |
Eventually we passed a small
bergerie where we shared a beer and tasted the local sheep’s cheese before an
endless plod past more bathing spots brought us finally to the road at the tiny
hamlet of Caniglia. By now Terri could
hardly walk because of the pain in her leg, and a French couple in a camper van
took pity on us and gave us a lift to the main highway at Vivariu. It was a long hobble to the train station,
but by 6:30 we were in the old inland capital Corte. We planned to take a day off to recover and
to celebrate my 47th birthday on September 13th, but
after a visit to the hospital the next day, punctuated by a dramatic encounter
with a histrionic shouting nurse, we were both ordered to cease and desist from
hiking for at least a week. My sciatica,
which had been with me all trip, suddenly took a big turn for the worse on that
last day, and I was hobbling as badly as Terri.
Our GR20 was over at the halfway mark.
At least we had completed the harder half of the route before quitting.
My overall take on the GR20 is
that it lives up to its mystique, but not in the way I expected. The toughness of the walk is not in its
vertical metres climbed, or its horizontal kilometres covered. It’s in the technical challenges of
scrambling and semi-rock climbing with a full backpack, and in the very real
physical risk of a slip or a tumble, as well as the mental stress of doing this
on every step for hours on end. The
three non-technical days we did (Albertacce-Castellu Vergio on day 4, Castellu
Vergio-Mangannu on day 5 and our walk out on day 7) were joys: easy walking with great views. I suspect that the southern half of the walk
would have been like this too. The
legendary technical stages, origin of the GR20’s hair-raising reputation, are a
do-able challenge, with stunning views, but the mental grind of having to
choose every foothold and handhold with care detracts a bit from the fun of
walking in the mountains. I greatly
preferred the walking we did in the Pyrenees.
The other part of the GR20 that
is sub-par is accommodation, with overcrowded refuges that charge very high
prices for everything and have dubious sanitation and not enough space (in most
cases) for tents. The GR20 is a victim
of its own popularity in this respect.
Would I come back to finish the
GR20 in the future? Maybe, although it’s
not at the top of my to-do list.