Preparing for the GR20 in Corsica: Europe's Toughest Grand Randonnée?

First: A Note About Walking Poles

With advancing age (between us we currently have experience of running around on this planet for 121 years!) one's joints are not quite as supple and forgiving as they once were. Both of us have hips and knees that regularly remind us of the stresses and strains they have endured over that time.
As a consequence, for about the past four years we've been using walking poles on any hikes where we carry more than about about twenty pounds (roughly 9 kilos). This has most certainly been a major factor in our ability to continue doing long hikes, especially with a lot of vertical gain and loss, and we wish we'd started using poles much earlier. Our eyes were really opened a few  years ago when hiking in the Pyrenees seeing lots of young people racing up hills, poling away like mad. They had the right idea and no doubt will have fewer hip and knee problems down the track. So, if you're contemplating walking the GR20 - or any other long hike with a lot of vertical gain and loss - do yourself a favour and use poles.

Who Are We?

Atop Mount Canigou on the Pyrenean Haute Route

Di and Doug. That's us. At the time of writing this blog, sixty-three and fifty-eight years old. Respectively. We are a retired couple who never grew up and are trying to have as much fun as we can fit in - and afford to pay for! - before our joints pack up and we're confined to twin Zimmer Frames. So far we are doing okay, although one of us has had to have a hip and oil change and the other is getting closer to that state of affairs. Basically, along with a couple of other outdoor activities, we love hiking. No longer able to cope with long wilderness hikes where we have to carry all our camping gear and food for a week or more at a time, we discovered hiking in Europe - and refuges! It's given us a new lease of life. Basically, the message here is that if we can hike the GR20, you probably can too, so get out amongst it!

Taking the Long View

The famous mountain with a window

Our preparation for the GR20 in Corsica - "Europe's toughest grand randonnée" (search the internet for "Europe's toughest grand randonnée" and see what it serves up!) - started way back in 2009, the year before Di and I retired. Di was determined to do a long hike in Europe so she started researching options. Hiking in the Alps was appealing, although I thought that might be a bit crowded and was keen for her to look elsewhere. (Some exploration of the Alps remains an option for future trips, especially as I have been reassured by many people that there are few fellow hikers on the paths once you get out of Chamonix.) Two very appealing options kept coming up: hiking the length of the Pyrenees or going to Corsica to do the GR20.
As an aside, there are actually at least four options for hiking the length of the Pyrenees: on the French side of the border via the GR10 and the Haute Randonnée Pyrénéan, on the Spanish side via the GR11, and the Pyrenean Haute Route described by Ton Joosten, published by Cicerone Press, which utilises tracks in France, Spain and Andorra. (Cicerone guides also exist for the GR10 & GR11.)
For our retirement present to ourselves we selected the Pyrenean Haute Route because we were seduced by the idea of walking from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, and we wanted something really, really loooonnnnggggg. (You can see photos from our traverse of the Pyrenees here, but be warned that you need a pretty fast internet connection as some of the image files are quite large.) The PHR is 45 days of walking. That's  loooonnnnggggg. By contrast, the GR20 is only one-third as long at only 15 days. Since that trip to the Pyrenees, which was one of our best ever adventures the GR20 kept popping up in our thoughts and during conversation with fellow hiking enthusiasts. So, after putting Corsica and the GR20 on the back burner we have finally got back to it this year.

Taking the short view

It just occurred to me that I haven't looked at YouTube before now for videos of the GR20. If you think that reading this account and looking at a bunch of photos might just be bloody boring, you could get a quick snapshot of the entire experience by looking at this rather nice little video where the film-maker recounts his experiences in under four minutes walking from south to north (we went north to south, which is generally preferred) ...

On the other hand, if you think you might enjoy a more detailed recount, read on!

A quick note about walking times

For our bible to hiking the GR20 we used Paddy Dillon's guidebook. We didn't carry the print copy but instead took with us the the digital version on Di's iPad mini, which worked well. We found his walking times quite generous. Apart from the fifth day which we completed in exactly the time Dillon suggested, we arrived at the finishing point each day considerably quicker than the listed times. 

Are you thinking about walking the GR20? If you are used to walking and scrambling on rough ground and walking up hills it's likely that you will finish each stage quicker than Dillon suggests (if you use his guidebook). If you've done most of your walking on well-groomed trails and flatter terrain, you will probably exceed his times.

Making it happen

Late last year we decided for good that 2013 was to be the "Year of the GR Vingt". Di ordered the guide book and two large maps of Corsica so we could start our planning. She also bought herself a new, lightweight and innovative Aarn  FloMo BodyPack. (I think it's a bit wanky, and the fiddly-ness of it would drive me crazy, but she loves it!) We eliminated (some of) the excess gear we carried through the Pyrenees and spent some time trying to decide on whether to take tents, sleeping mats and bags or not. In the end, after Di had spent some time reading about problems with bedbugs in the refuges, we opted to take the camping gear. (More about that in future posts.) We discovered on the walk that every refuge and bergerie along the route also has overflow accommodation in the way of tents equipped with sleeping mats.
By the way, if you decide to do the GR20 and stay in either fixed tents or the refuges you still need your own sleeping bag; unlike in the Pyrenees and Alps refuges do not supply blankets.
We booked our airline tickets, and hotels for our arrival in Corsica and for the third, fifth and ninth nights of the trek. We alerted our friends Michel - who we'd met in the Pyrenees - and his partner Brigitte - who came with Michel to visit us in early 2012 - that we were on our way back to France. Michel insisted that they pick us up in Paris and whisk us off to Bretagne, then on to Toulouse before we flew to Bastia in Corsica.

Getting unfit for the challenge

Life on the road in Northern Australia

Before going off to do this tough hike in the mountains of Corsica we had a long trip to the big island north of Tasmania to deal with. Things started off well, with a couple of months climbing at Mount Arapiles in Victoria and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. We felt pretty fit, lugging our packs to the crag and climbing most days, with the odd day hike now and then for a bit of variety. Unfortunately, the continuation of our journey to FNQ to visit grandchildren and explore Cape York with friends really put the kibosh on our fitness program. It was great fun though. Di got to see lots of birds, I got to drag her up some fun climbs, we had a great time with our little darlings in Cairns and we had a fantastic time with and learned a lot about four-wheel drive touring from our friends Max and Prue and Graham and Liz up at The Cape. If you haven't seen our blog from that trip and think you might be interested you can read about it here.

Getting fit for the challenge

We had a couple of weeks upon our return to Tasmania to tidy the garden, put in some winter vegetables and hike as much as we could to get fit again. Di also did a bunch of Barrecode classes and I rode my bike a few times for variety and the sheer joy of it. We managed to tone up a bit and got rid of some of the flab we gained from eating and drinking too much and sitting on our arses in a four wheel drive for a couple of months. Still, we didn't feel anywhere near ready for 15 days of strenuous hiking and scrambling through the series of mountains that make up the spine of Corsica.
Luckily, Michel had hatched a plan for us. In the 10 days we spent in Bretagne, we hiked almost the whole time, including seven days and about 150 kilometres along the coast between Concarneau and Lorient. (This week of hiking constituted less than 10 percent of the GR34, which runs along the entire coast of Bretagne.) Along our hike we attended three festivals, which were all great fun. I did, however, tell Michel that he drove a hard holiday, as we were pretty darn tired at the end of each day! After between the hiking and actually starting the GR20 we had a few days to recover ourselves, which worked a treat. Most of all though, we are so thankful to Michel for his last week training program. It was what really primed us for the hike through what the French refer to as "la montagne dans la mère" or "la belle île". But, more than anything, we had a really great time!