And so it begins! The GR4. One of the most famous walking routes in France, the GR4 spans from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic covering a distance of 1530km and boasts a whopping 35972m of ascent! It is a huge undertaking, not just because of its size but because the walking in places will be considerably harder than what I have been doing, as you will see from reading this blog. I am still unsure if I will do the whole thing or stop at Clermont Ferrand which is about 2/3 of the way along so I can then turn east again and do some more of the Alps. To give you an idea of the scale of this walk, look at the picture below which shows what have done already and the challenge that is ahead of me:
I started the walk from Grasse feeling both nervous and excited again as I couldn’t wait to venture into the Alps and yet I was also nervous about both the difficulty of the walking and the weather. I knew there was still snow around but didn’t expect to see it on the first morning at relatively low levels! We had had a couple of warm days and so I was hoping it would just be at very high level. My bag was also heavier than it had been at any stage of my journey so far as I knew I wouldn’t come across a shop for the whole of that day. I was also aware that I was walking towards a storm that was due to come in during the evening of the second day. I was however well rested and so quickly climbed to my first summit at 1,300m and took a last look back at the Med. There were patches of snow around and I was camping that night so I was keen to make good ground. At around lunchtime I checked the weather again and the storm was still due later the next day. I also looked to book some accommodation for the second night as the storm was coming in and would have been horrible in a bivvy bag. I looked around and there was nothing anywhere near my budget on the GR4 route! I then looked for camping options and managed to find myself a campsite with sturdy canvas pre-made tents. I was relieved and yet slightly nervous as it would mean covering about 45 miles in two days. Not only that, I would have to do it by early the following afternoon if I wanted to finish before the storm. There was also a huge amount of climbing to be done in that stretch. This was going to be tough.
I pushed on hard and made great progress, eventually reaching the base of Mount Cheiron. I had been carefully scouting Mount Cheiron to see how much snow was on top as I was keen to try and add a little extra to the route and see if I could get to the summit as it is 1,770m tall and I might not get many opportunities to climb that size mountain for quite a long time. It looked completely clear so I went for it. A massive climb but one that I managed with ease, even the cloud at the top cleared for me. I was however, running out of daylight and I had to get lower down to sleep. The higher up the mountain you go, the more the temperatures drop at night and it was already cold. The snow around gave me a very good clue that it was going to get much colder. I walked down to the mountain pass which was back on my route and immediately hit the snow on the north face of the mountain that is protected from the sun. Walking through patches of ankle deep snow really slowed me down as I just didn’t know if my next step would be soft snow or ice until I put my foot on it. The light was fading fast, I found a nice clear area near a ski resort and so settled down for what I knew would be a chilly night. I heard a few more boar around but wasn’t particularly bothered so settled down and drifted off to sleep pretty quickly. And then woke an hour later, freezing cold. I put on some extra clothes, even put my towel over me and fell asleep again. And woke up an hour later absolutely freezing. There wasn’t really much else I could do so spent most of the night sleeping for a few minutes and then waking up really cold. At about 4.30am I gave up and started packing everything away slowly. I went to put my shoes on, which had been wet the night before from the snow, and they were frozen solid. How do you unfreeze shoes when it is still freezing? You put them on your warm feet - yes, that was a fairly miserable experience. However, I did get to watch the moon setting over the top of the mountain which was magical!
This was one of those moments where, as a hiker, you feel justifies all of the suffering you put yourself through. It is the old pain/gain balance. And I was about to be rewarded again! An hour or so later, I left the other side of the valley and had my breath taken away when I came out above the cloud line and could see the tops of some of the high alpine peaks majestically covered in snow. It was incredible and I sat down, ate my breakfast and just felt lucky to be alive.
This was, by far, the favourite moment of my trip so far and just made everything feel worth it.
Now, the mathematicians out there should be pointing back to the pain/gain balance idea and saying that ‘something that magical must be paid for, right?’
Yes, my friends you are absolutely bloomin right!
So, knowing the storm was coming (it had actually moved forward a couple of hours) I set off for my planned 20 mile walk. As soon as I started to go down through the forest however I found more snow than ever. It took ages to get down; about two hours to get into the valley below and as the slope was so steep it was treacherous. There were even times where I had to take my rucksack off, slide it down the hill a little, cling on to trees and branches for dear life and lower myself down. I got to the bottom and the heavens opened and it just kept raining all day long. Up the next mountain, rain. Down the valley, rain. To the shop which turned out to be closed, rain. To a restaurant which also was closed, rain. I was on my last orange at this point having already been rationing my food and so pretty hungry. I added an extra two miles to my route so that I could stop off at another restaurant (by the way, it was raining). I got to the restaurant, or at least where the restaurant was marked on the map and found an empty field. No restaurant. It turned out that the restaurant was actually in a village 29 miles away and the fault was a problem with the map on my phone. It had a lovely menu which I had looked at online and planned the delicious meal I was going to eat. The next town with anything in it was about 10 miles further on. I was starving and all I had was my tiny orange. I ploughed on through the rain towards my campsite as it said they had some food available. I rationed my orange in segments, eating one segment per mile. The walking was getting tough as the rain had turned the paths into sticky clay but eventually I trudged my way through and got to the campsite, freezing cold, soaking wet and very very hungry. Only the campsite once again was not where the map said it was! I knocked on someone’s door at the property where the campsite was marked and they told me there wasn’t a campsite there and we worked out it was once again marked in the wrong place and was actually in a town about a day further along my route. This was easily the most desperate I have felt on this whole journey.
Luckily, just when I needed it, a wonderful bloke called Eric turned up in a van. He and the lady talked a bit, he agreed to take me into town, which was on his way anyway, where I could find a hotel. When we were driving we got chatting and he was a really lovely man. When he heard about my day he immediately found me a small cake that was in his car and gave it to me. We actually ended up going to a slightly different town than planned as there was a cheaper hotel and right next door to it was a supermarket. I thanked Eric profusely, stocked up on a ton of junk food, warmed myself up in a scolding hot shower and, surprise, surprise slept incredibly well that night!
The next day, I felt weirdly fresh and ready to go, I had spoken to the campsite and changed my booking and so headed off towards Castellane which is at the start of the Gorges du Verdon. I actually ended up changing my route part way through the day as the rain that had been falling on me all the previous day had fallen as snow higher up and the mountains were just completely impassable. I hitched a ride to Lac Verdon and spent a pleasant day walking alongside a quiet road. I have to admit I loved the easy walking and simple navigation after the day I’d had before. The blue of the water in the Verdon is incredible and rather mesmerising. It is so easy just to stare at it for hours.
I spent an extra day exploring Castellane and then set off on my birthday to start walking the proper bits of the gorges. They are goregeous (sorry - it’s true though). Absolutely stunning. When you are down by the river they tower over you in a way that you can’t capture on camera and there are loads of vultures there flying slightly ominously overhead. There are lots of tunnelled sections and a few bits where they have had to add in handholds so that you can pass. There is also a really annoying one-way footpath which I turned up at the wrong end of and so had to retrace my steps and find a different route. On the way back however I did see quite an interesting bird, I wonder if you can spot the bird in this picture? Comment below if you find it - I promise it is there!
I had a lovely lunch and then discovered what I have been looking for this whole trip. A cheap campsite with warm showers and other people actually camping! That is all I need. It has taken me two months of walking to find this though that is largely due to where I have been walking and the fact that most campsites don’t open until the very end of April. I really hope that this is a sign of what is to come as having a campsite takes a lot of the stress out of camping (though wild-camping is wonderful and I will be doing it again a lot on this trip) and if I only have to pay 10-15 euros for my campsite then I can start to eat out in nicer restaurants a lot more often than I have been. I don’t think it is any coincidence that I had the best nights sleep of my whole trip after a day of beautiful walking, nice food and lovely birthday wishes from some wonderful people.
The next day I set off on a footpath through the gorge again, in the correct direction this time. As I was walking down I was slightly nervous as I have read about this walk and read the numerous warnings about how difficult it is, how you shouldn’t do it if you have vertigo, how it can take 6-8 hours to complete. Mum had also found a website that said it was closed but it didn’t say why. I went down anyway and got even more nervous passing people with climbing ropes and harnesses and wondering whether I would need them myself but it was absolutely fine. I guess the many warnings are because it is a very touristy area and, if you are at all new to mountaineering it would definitely be a challenge. After some of the days I have had it did feel a little anticlimactic as I was hoping for some sheer drops to get my adrenaline going. There were sone steep bits and a few points where they added in handrails but nothing too tricky. The views however were stunning and I would highly recommend to anyone that they should visit the Verdon Gorges at some point. If you do, also make sure you go to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie which is a wonderful town, probably my favourite town for visiting on the trip so far. It has a lovely church in between the faces of a gorge with a waterfall flowing down in front of it and the shops and restaurants are excellent as well.
Just for the wildlife lovers: I have also seen some more wild boar (including babies), a fire salamander and a few golden eagles :)
I am currently sat in a cabin that I am staying in for a couple of days to shelter from the rain, looking forward to tomorrow as the sun is due to return and I can find out what lays ahead in the next part of my adventure. I am now out of the main mountains of the alps and into the foothills with a few summits thrown in just to keep me on my toes :)