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| ALONGSIDE THE LACS D'ARRIËL NEAR ARRÉMOULIT |
You can never be sure how an adventure, however carefully planned, is going to work out. What I had intended to do in 2014 didn't happen because of snow conditions, so I completed only about half the route at that time. However, I did learn a few things, and my return to the Pyrenees this year to hike the other half went much more smoothly.
Apart from the places I visited on the walking route itself, on both occasions I was also given the opportunity to explore many other parts of southern France - Pau, Lourdes, Cauterets, Luchon, Carcassonne, Foix, Toulouse and the many small towns on the Mediterranean coast. And then there was Spain - Santander, Donostia/San Sebastian and of course Barcelona.
My walking route between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean generally followed that prescribed by Ton Joosten's book, but there were many deviations from it, several of which Mr Joosten himself suggested as alternatives. The HRP is really a concept rather than a precise path anyway, so the fact that I made good use of the GR10 and GR11 routes, and also made a few ad-hoc modifications of my own, is entirely in keeping with Mr Joosten's intentions.
I don't know precisely how long my walking route was, but it would be about 800km or 500miles. In 2014 I spent 22 days walking it, and then another 21 days in 2018, so 43 days in total. Thus, I did an average of around 12 miles a day, which isn't bad considering the terrain and the weight of my rucksack.
I have ignored the short (10km) taxi ride between the Refugio de Belagua and Pierre-St-Martin which enabled me and my three Spanish friends to escape the thunderstorm on the border ridge. Equally, I have ignored the extra walking days I did between Cauterets and Gavarnie, Luchon and Superbagneres, Hospice de France and the Refuge de Venasque, and the Andorran foray from Hospitalet to Juclar and back.
After my John o'Groats to Land's End hike in 2009, the Pyrenean trek seemed like an appropriate step up in the level of challenge. It was certainly tough and demanded a lot of resolve to complete. How does it compare to other challenging treks? Well, they say that the Corsican GR20 is the toughest long distance trail in Europe, but having now done both, I can assure readers that the HRP is much tougher because of the terrain, the amount of ascent and descent required, potential routefinding difficulties, the duration, accommodation opportunities and the resupply difficulties.
Do I have any other walking challenges in mind? Not really, but you never know......