Red Yeti's Blog

For the TJR I switched from using the extremely reliable Ortlieb Aqua Zoom (that I mentioned before) to trialling a simple Exped Fold Dry Bag UL, Small (24g) for the camera and another identical bag for the two lenses that weren’t on the camera. It was no big risk, the bags then live inside the pack liner – they’re just a second layer of waterproofing.

I carried a Canon EOS 550D attached by a little Nitize S-Biner to a length of 10mm webbing fixed to a shoulder strap on the GoLite Pinnacle pack. It very handily fits snugly into one of the side pockets of the pack. I used that technique along the GR20 and the camera survived just fine.

I also took the excellent value Canon EF-S 55-250mm f4-5.6 IS (dubbed “Ibex lens”), the Canon EF 35mm f2.0 (“People lens” – wouldn’t be without this, it’s 56mm equivalent on the 1.6 crop body of the EOS 550D) and the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM (“Landscape lens” of course!) which as usual was on the 550D most of the time.

The bags were tested when new and were completely waterproof.

I was fully expecting to trash the bag I used on the camera; perhaps not during the trip but a trip soon after. These bags aren’t meant to be very strong – I accept that. This was an experiment to see how long it would last.

Trash it I did – there must have been upwards of thirty holes in it, one or two you could see daylight through and several others that wept water so fast I decided it wasn’t worth attempting to repair. I honestly didn’t expect it to fail that badly, that fast.

The bag that I kept the lenses in only got tested a few days later, just to be sure, since I fully expected it to be fine. It had only held the lenses and had mainly lived wrapped up in a fleece or waterproof in the pack. To my astonishment I found it had six weeping leaks. I really am not sure that the amount of use it has seen should result in leaks like that. It’s disappointing since I have a great deal of respect for Exped. I’ve always found their products to be very well made and more than up to the job at hand.

I know others have had bad experiences with Sea to Summit Ultra-Sil Dry Sacks but I’ve had several and each has taken a reasonable thrashing for a couple of years before giving up. In fact the 35Ls we use for compressing and waterproofing down (sleeping bag and/or duvet jacket) at the bottom of the packs are still fine. They have seen a great deal of bashing around in the packs for many weeks since before the Iceland trip, including seven weeks on the GR5. Meaning they’ve seen three years of service for every big trip and many day walks (for down jackets).

So I’ve just taken delivery of a 4L Ultra-Sil (26g) that’s the same size as the Small Exped UL.

It will be getting a fair kicking, wrapped around the nasty pointy bits on the 550 and being shoved into the pocket around behind my back. I’ll take a while to put the two weeks of use on it that the Exped dry bags saw in Switzerland but I have an inkling it will survive better.

I’ll leave an update here when I know more!

I’ve not posted my Alpine walking kit list since we did the Haute Route in August 2007 and it’s changed a little of course. A recent comment has prompted me to run through it and note what’s changed.

But most of what we carry in the Alps in summer can be seen in the videos I posted both on hut-to-hut kit and the extra camping and photographic kit.

But for the written record, here are the changes I’ve made since the Haute Route kit posting:

Spare torch -> Photon Freedom Microlight. Sooo small and light it’s madness not to take one.

Granite Gear Vapor Trail rucksack -> GoLite Pinnacle pack. More comfortable, sheds rain better, side pocket takes a Canon EOS 550D (on a leash – in fact, see the next post!).

Silnylon rucksack rain cover -> Nothing – don’t use it anymore.

Montane Lite Speed wind proof -> Nothing – don’t use it in the Alps (more useful for more changeable weather in the UK).

Silk gloves -> Extremities Power Dry Gloves (not to be confused with the thicker, warmer Power Stretch). They stay warmer when wet and are harder wearing. One of my all time favourite bits of kit.

Emergency shelter -> A Superlite Bothy 2 rather than the standard 4 person version (half the weight).

Silk boxer shorts X3 -> Icebreaker X2. I like the fit better, and two pairs worked very well for the whole of the GR5 (washing one pair almost every night).

Integral Designs Shortie eVENT gaiters -> Only waterproof socks inside the inov8 Flyrocs in the Alps.

Sealskinz socks -> Rocky GoreTex Socks – far superior in both comfort and particularly durability (as long as you read the instructions and pull them off by pinching under the heel – else they can get torn).

Montrail Hurricane Ridge approach shoes -> Too heavy – inov8 Terrocs or Flyrocs but most of the time; Vibram Five Fingers!

Swiss Army knife -> Opinel Number 7 – very light, very sharp. Perfect for cheese and saucisson, and carving rough bark of a branch if you need a stick in a hurry… I sadly lost mine on the TJR that I’d had since I was twelve (so that’s twenty nine years, if you’re wondering).

3 packs travel tissues (in 6″X9″ Aloksak) -> Toilet roll, two sheets at a time, stacked in the Aloksak. A vital bit of kit for us westerners in remote huts where they can run out. Replenished, literally only a couple of sheets here and there only from hotels or other non-remote places that we stayed (so few that I’m quite sure they wouldn’t have minded). You can be remarkably economical with it if you try. This saw us through the whole of the GR20 (where there rarely is any in the huts!).

Re-used Indian Tonic Water bottles -> Platypus Hoser 2L. I don’t like the level of plasticisers that I’m probably ingesting, but the dehydration wasn’t good at all, as I discovered on the Haute Route.

Ortlieb Aquazoom waterproof camera case -> Sea To Summit Ultrasil 4L waterproof stuffsack… I think… that’s the next post in fact!

The Tour Of The Jungfrau Region is properly “awesome”.

Not as in; “Whoa that’s some awesome pizza!” but as in; “…”

To get some small idea of what I mean, here are some of the images (click ‘Slideshow’ and then press F11):

TJR Faster Forward

Or for a really cut down set:

TJR Super Fast Forward

The Tour of the Jungfrau Region is simply stunning. The pair of us have bimbled about in the Alps a reasonable amount (considering we live in Brighton) and we consider this to be equal to the finest routes we’ve done. Not just in terms of the “configurability” of the route but also in terms of the breath-taking scenery. Kev Reynolds has our sincere thanks for putting together not just (another!) first rate guide but the whole concept of the TJR itself. We met several others with a copy of the guide book along the way.

The route is circular, (though oddly ours looks like a fat Ibex – see the link to the Spot tracks below) but since it occasionally goes up and down valleys there are often places that can be short-cut should the weather close in or if you decide that you want a shorter day. I could go on and on about how good we thought it was but if you’re someone that likes to walk in the Alps you already have an idea of what it can be like. And if you’re not, then, as I tweeted in reply to Alan Sloman, you should probably consider finding out before: A) the glaciers melt again (as the guide book says, there was far less glaciation there in Roman times), B) absolutely everyone comes, C) world economic melt down (oh – maybe too late by summer 2012 then? ;) ).

Although we broadly followed the guidebook,  the below paragraphs on our itinerary should give anyone that’s considering the route a flavour of what to expect. I’d point out that the days may look small but are more strenuous than you might imagine if you’ve not done any Alpine walking. As I’ve said before, we’ve come across more than one walker who was trying to double-up guidebook stages because they looked too easy – but who were regretting it. Mainly because it was harder than they expected but also partly because it’s such a shame to rush this kind of journey. The main purpose is not reaching the end (more than once on the GR5 helpful souls pointed out buses that could take us to Nice – seriously).

We built-in easy days and one full rest day (two nights at Berghaus Bäregg). Which was perfect as some of the crew took those opportunities to rest and write journals whilst those of us made of duller material could blunder onwards on day walks (day walks; just out-and-back. Really, what was the point of them? Maybe there were buses that we could have caught).

I’ve put up a Google Map using the way-points created by the Spot tracker. You’ll need to scroll down on the left hand side to see the next page containing the remainder of the way-points since Google Maps only show 200 points at a time.  Or else download them as “KML”, from the link under the description, and view them all at once in Google Earth. (Note this is just the main route – the extra day we did out of Interlaken after we’d finished the TJR isn’t shown).

So, the TJR itinerary:

Day 1
Berghotel Schynige Platte
Arrived at Geneva airport and changed trains in Bern. There’s a large Migros supermarket nearby Bern station for stocking up on dried sausage, cheese, nuts and excellent Swiss chocolate. (Out of the station, turn right down the hill to the junction at the bottom, turn left. There’s a deceptively small door with an escalator down to the supermarket in the basement). There’s almost no chance on the route itself to stock-up until Mürren – which is off-route. We arrived in Interlaken and grabbed a bus (far end of the platform) for the two or so kilometres to Wilderswil (We could have walked but needed to ensure we caught the last train. Note there’s another little Migros opposite the train station). Then the cog railway up to the Berghotel Schynige Platte and the start of the TJR. You could do it on foot but you’d need to allow a day. It would also be heck of a tough start to the holiday.

Day 2
Berghaus First
Eye-popping views and a long but relatively easy day passing a lake towards the end (where we had a welcome and very refreshing skinny-dip). First is a large, very plush ski station but friendly and with good food, rather like all the places we stayed!

Day 3
Gleckstein hut
Utterly astonishing views with a very easy (not technical but steep) and quite exposed approach which is effectively up a lower face of the Wetterhorn. We were lucky enough to see Ibex right outside the hut where they were attracted by the guardian placing salt on the wall (they don’t come very often apparently). Also had a hot shower to our astonishment (it was 5CHF each but heck – they have to helicopter the gas in and it had been a broiling hot day).

Day 4
Downtown Hostel
Planned to finish the day at the Berghaus Bäregg but were diverted by a bridge being out (damaged when melt water within the glacier released as a huge torrent) and some poor local advice (there actually is another bridge slightly further down stream) to the comfortable Downtown Hostel in Grindelwald. Supermarket nearby and good catering standard kitchen!

Day 5
Berghaus Bäregg
Another fairly high hut with astonishing views of the glaciers but this time without such an exposed approach. We got to the hut by lunch time and then walked about two thirds of the way to the Schreckhorn hut. We pushed past the end of the easy path some little way but it is exposed (we were all climbers but it was just beginning to push our comfort zones) and requires help from the chains and fixed cables. It really requires a full day for a round-trip to the Schreckhorn hut and back to Berghaus Bäregg.

Day 6
Grindelwaldblick
The Eigergletscher is closed permanently (see the Updates tab). The Alpiglen was closed for the last part of the 2011 season for refurbishment so we pressed on, along the North Face of the Eiger (yes, really, it’s very easy up to the bottom of the climbs) all the way to Kleine Scheidegg and the Grindelwaldblick Hotel. A couple of the party went down to Alpiglen and took the cog railway up to Kleine Scheidegg for a shorter day.

Day 7
Hotel Stechelberg
A big descent day (lightweight footwear helping everyone there) that turned out much longer than expected since the path to the valley had been closed (it was damaged and unsafe). So we traversed further along and descended into Wengen, then down to Lauterbrunnen and then back up the valley into Stechelberg. The hotel is small and very friendly with excellent food (especially the breakfast – boiled eggs from hens in the garden).

Day 8
Berghotel Obersteinberg
As we left Stechelberg we passed cows with decorated with fir tree branches in celebration of the end of the summer grazing in the alpine pasture above. Rain set in late in the day. We did the full route around the back of the valley to the hotel which is spectacular. Again a couple of the party made an easier day of it by going straight to the hotel. Wonderful old hotel without electricity but with its own dairy! Far more like a high level mountain hut than a hotel in many ways. Food was served by candlelight making for a very restful stay.

Day 9
Rotstock hut
It rained for much of our approach to the Rotstock hut but then it turned to snow which was far more pleasant. We had a very warm welcome and ate excellent hot lunches. I spent the afternoon snoozing as the snow built up outside.

Day 10
Pension Suppenalp
We had hoped to go over the Schilthorn (the highest point on the route, and visible above you from the hut) but there was ankle deep snow at our level and we knew it was far deeper, icy and also very exposed, with fixed cables, on approach to the summit (two walker with axes and crampons had made the descent the day before and said it was getting a little technical). So we chose the bad-weather variant and descended into Mürren where we grabbed a coffee, missed the Coop supermarket (closed for lunch!) and headed up to the excellent Pension Suppenalp for a hot lunch and drinks.

Day 11
Suls-Lobhorn Hut
The sun returned for an easy day through yet another new and gorgeous valley into the Suls-Lobhorn hut. In among a set of welcoming, stunningly located accommodation serving delicious food this place managed to become our favourite. Mainly because of the lovely Lisa the guardian who couldn’t do enough for everyone. Some of us then headed up to the Lobhorn itself for a good afternoon walk in fairly deep snow at the top.

Day 12
Hotel Rugenpark B&B, Interlaken
Sadly the end of the TJR. But still another new valley to ogle at. We descended to Saxeten, had a tasty lunch at the Hotel Alpenrose and bid a sad goodbye to a couple of the party (the same ones!) who caught the post bus to Wilderswil, and on to Interlaken and the train home (arriving home later that night). The three of us that were still standing headed for Wilderswil; the official finish, but veered-off north shortly after leaving the hotel to climb again before descending towards Interlaken West station. The hotel is on the road leading to the station (as we discovered from the excellent Google Map app on the iPhone). Tasty and reasonably priced dinner at the Restaurant Bären where we looked back on a simply excellent route.

Day 13
Hotel Rugenpark B&B, Interlaken (again)
We had originally considered taking the train up to the Jungfraujoch but without any discount card it was around 180CHF. Besides, we wanted to keep walking! Both Lisa at the Lobhorn hut and Ursula, the owner of the Rugenpark (both of whom were incredibly kind and helpful), advised taking the bus from the station to the cable car up to the Niederhorn and walking back around to Habkern. It was a great route and we didn’t much fancy the bus so we walked the extra seven or so kilometres to the hotel. Another tasty, reasonably priced dinner, this time in the Des Alpes where the staff were friendly and funny.

Day 14
Home via trains, planes and an automobile. Next time we’d very much like to visit the old town in Bern on the way back.

More pictures are coming…

Okay so this is many years behind several million other people, and speaking as an IT consultant I hang my head in shame, but; I think I finally ‘get’ Twitter.

Before I explain it I need to take a moment to explain what a blog is. “Hang on!”, you’re probably thinking. “He was talking Twitter and now he’s off onto blogs. What is this? Where’s all the hiking and kit and techniques?” – Bear with me – I’ll come back around to that.

I need to explain blogging since I’ve met more than one otherwise web-savvy person who didn’t know: blog is a contraction of “web log” which is a rather fancy name for a diary that you keep on the Internet. To write a blog, you use “blogging software” which is just a program that runs on a computer on the Internet that makes it easy to create a new web page, known as a “post”, with a title and a date, to which you can then add your ramblings about whatever you have been doing or are thinking of doing. That’s all there is to it.

But like many inventions, the use it’s generally put to isn’t really the original use that was intended. What I mean is; you are reading this posting that I wrote on some blogging software right now. Notice that it has a date at the top. But this site isn’t really much of an online diary. Like many other people I’ve been using blogging software to publish a series of articles on a particular subject (and this post will get back there, however tenuously).

So that’s what a blog is, but Twitter is what is termed a “micro blog”: some blogging software that only lets you “post” very short entries. Forcing you to boil down those little moments in your life to pithy evocative phrases (hence haiku is quite a popular form on Twitter). The little posts are known as “Tweets”.

So I can now read back on my postings from Corsica as we walked the GR20 (bet you can see the link to the main topic of the blog coming…). I love it, a little diary of moments in my life.

But just like ordinary blogging, Twitter has grown way beyond that. People use it to see what their friends are doing since you can see their Twitter pages (their “micro blogs”). But to make things easier, and stop you having to hop about to read all your friends’ pages, you can have their Tweets appear directly on your page. That’s called “following” someone. So you see your own diary mixed in with the diaries of your friends.

There are other aspects that have grown such as using the @ symbol to direct your Tweets at other specific Twitter users (read it as “at” as in “I’m directing this tweet ‘at’ RedYeti”) but such things are way beyond the scope of this posting!

What is also very handy is that you can post your tweets by text message from your phone, instead of logging in to Twitter in a web browser on your computer. Which is almost certainly cheaper than using the data connection when abroad. (Side note; all UK providers have some cheap option for data roaming if you just ask them!).

Which means that if you have close friends and relatives that want to hear what you are doing on a trip, you can simply send them all a link to your Twitter page and tell them all with one text. Better still, if they sign up for a Twitter account (they don’t have to post any Tweets!) they can “follow” you, and then they can tell Twitter to send your tweets directly to their own phone. So you can effectively use Twitter as a way to send one text message to many people (and get a mini diary into the bargain).

So, to finally blunder back on topic; I’ll be tweeting my way around the Tour of the Jungfrau Region if you fancy seeing what we’re up to!

http://twitter.com/#!/RedYetiDave

We’ll also be using the (new, lighter) Spot tracker so you can see where we are, pretty much real time:

Red Yeti’s Spot Tracker

This year’s Big Walk is the Tour of the Jungfrau Region (TJR) in Switzerland. As worked out by the excellent Kev Reynolds and published by Cicerone.

At 10 days of actual walking, it’s a smaller walk than we’ve done for a while (other commitments this year) but the scenery should make up for that somewhat.

This year we plan to actually leave with everyone else who might want to come with us… unexpected parental poppings-off notwithstanding.

Edit 31 May 2011: The “Kümmerly and Frey Jungfrau Region number 18″ is printed on plastic (so no need for Aqua3) and is far more readable than the Swiss Topo – will certainly be taking that in preference!

I’ve picked up a copy of the Swiss Topo 5004 from The Map Shop (1:50,000 “Larger sheets available for certain areas”) but Kev recommends the “Kümmerly and Frey Jungfrau Region number 18″ (which although Stanfords do it, Amazon have it for considerably cheaper). I have a feeling that although the Swiss Topo maps are very good, the Kümmerly and Frey may be easier to read. Once I decide I’ll be sending it off to Aqua3 to have it laminated, making it very resilient and waterproof.

We’re going hut-to-hut all the way so although I may well do an update on the kit, I’ve either covered it already or I have a mostly-written entry for the GR5 or GR20 that does! (There’s also my Alpine Summer Walking FAQ).

So there you are, in a remote mountain hut, and you’re dutifully flossing… when your crown pops off. Assuming you manage to avoid it disappearing down a soak-away, what do you do next?

Well you could put up with it and simply get it fixed when you get home. However in my case, it was a temporary front crown and although there was no pressing medical reason to glue it back in place, it left me with a truly scary-looking, brilliant-white post where one of my front teeth should have been. It was quite eye-catching.

I have enough difficulty making myself understood in tourist French without them staring in horror at some kind of cyborg-vampire-tooth.

So, I simply dried the crown and post. Then I dried them some more (super-glue only cures in the presence of water). Then I applied a tiny, tiny drop of super-glue to the bottom of the hole in the crown, slid the crown slowly back… most of the way into place… but not enough to reach the drop of glue… and then bit on it hard to seat it properly.

The glue was forced up around the post and set hard whilst I kept pressure on it for thirty seconds. It held it in place for the rest of the trip and well beyond. In fact my dentist hasn’t bothered to attempt to repair it since he says it’s perfectly fine where it is and he was already scheduled to create the final crown anyway (it goes in this Friday in fact…)

Note that I was fixing a crown onto a post and not a living tooth. I am unsure as to whether it’s true but according to a thread on backpackinglight.com, doing so can kill the tooth. I must admit to being very sceptical of that claim though, since my dentist informed me that super-glue was tried as a crown fixative and he didn’t mention it was only to be used on posts. However, I do carry a tiny dental repair kit that has proved very useful for another member of the party whose tooth partly broke in a remote location!

As it happens I carry super-glue for possible blister repair as Ryan Jordan mentions on that same thread.

I’ve always used the “UHU Super Glue Minis” (just search ebay for them) since they are very, very small and only weigh 4 grams each. They are sold in packs of three, with the theory being that instead of opening one large tube and then finding it has all gone-off 18 months later, you can open three separate tubes and ensure you have a fresh tube each time.

The one in my lightweight repair kit came in very handy indeed.

Hendrik Morkel has posted a great review of the FiveFingers. Within the comments, there was a link posted by harttj to the posting in which I mentioned that I’d injured myself as a result of wearing them on very stony ground, with a pack, when my feet were still quite weak.

I just want to be clear about my thinking about this: FiveFingers are very, very good for your feet. Apart from being the most comfortable footwear ever invented, they strengthen your feet and allow them to attain the power and flexibility that they have evolved to have. That power and flexibility is almost certainly not present if you have been wearing “normal” footwear for most of your life.

I really do find that I have far more “muscular” and flexible feet. It’s not over-stating this to say that my feet now feel like extra limbs that I’ve never previously had. I now have something that’s slightly more akin to hands on the end of my legs as opposed to things more akin to hooves which I used to clomp about on. I’m quite serious about this.

Okay, so are FiveFingers “dangerous”? Of course not! But using them for a hard walk across stony ground whilst carrying a quite heavy pack (including food, water and way too much photographic kit!) is dangerous if you do it before you are strong enough to do so.

I’d note again that my right foot was just fine and it had gone through the same conditions (of course!). And that the injury healed as I walked the 550kms+ onwards to Nice. So it wasn’t very damaged, just sore.

I had no arches before all this. I wore custom insoles and had sore arches and knee pain. I have neither now. It was visible in wet footprints on dry boards – my arches used to be in contact with the floor on both sides!

But this summer LB noticed I formed a normal footprint on both sides. And walking through soft peat in the FiveFingers clearly showed a full arch on my right and a more shallow but definitely present arch on my left.

My feet are becoming the biomechanically impressive limbs they always had the potential to be, had I not worn “good, solid, supportive” footwear all my life.

But how do you make your feet strong enough to take such a pounding?

Once we swapped to inov8 Terrocs not only I, but LB and also our regular walking and Big Walk buddy Kev found that our feet were tired in a way that indicated they were working in ways they’d just not been used to. The more “muscular” nature of my feet, I’m sure, started with the Terrocs but was mainly achieved by wearing the FiveFingers.

Will wearing inov8s/FiveFingers sort out your knee/foot problems and give you muscly feet in a couple of weeks? Of course not! That’s exactly like expecting that a couple of sessions at the gym will give you a six pack (many magazines and web sites are sold on such rubbish of course). But the advantage of wearing inov8s/FiveFingers is that it’s something that you don’t take time out to do, doesn’t take extra will-power and is actually fun (sorry, but gyms just aren’t fun to me).

So, if you don’t get along with inov8s for some reason, at least try something very, very flexible indeed to allow the feet to work harder whilst cushioning the poor, slightly atrophied things and preventing injuring them.

Several of the well known walking shoe manufacturers are bringing out “barefoot” models next season (according to Outdoor Retailer 2010 coverage by backpackinglight.com – sorry members only link). I am very, very happy that it’s catching on but I must admit to being rather concerned that many people may put on a pair and expect miraculous transformations in existing injuries and lower limb health. Whereas if they just start walking long distances with large packs, they may acquire more injuries and worse lower limb health. Which may consign the idea of “barefooting” to the list of fads that come and go. It’s all about expectations and whether people will generally understand that they need to rebuild strength in their feet slowly.

On a related note; not only does wearing the FiveFingers strengthen your feet, it changes your gait. I had no pain at all from my knees on the Corsica trip until I started to descend on an easy track (as we joined the Mare-Mare Sud for a diversion in fact). I realised I was was heal striking in descent because the inov8s have a soft heal. But I know for sure that in the FiveFingers I would have switched to toe-striking with smaller steps. So I consciously switched gaits (surprisingly hard to do after years of shoe wearing I can tell you!) and the pain stopped in a couple of steps. Back to heal striking and the pain returned, back to toe striking and it went. Very interesting.

We didn’t wear the FiveFingers on the GR 20 for the simple reason that we assumed the route would be very, very rocky and we weren’t sure our feet were strong enough to cope yet. We also wanted light packs so they were literally tossed out of the bag as the cab arrived to start the journey. It was a knife-edge decision.

But Russ from this year’s Big Walk crew met someone who had walked GR 20 in them. He said he had hiked in them for two years before he was strong enough to wear them for a route like the GR 20.

Bottom line: We both wear FiveFingers almost constantly when it’s not snowing. For everything. Home and hiking. They are not just comfortable, they make walking even more fun. They and the inov8s have allowed me to correct knee and foot problems. Lets face it – 3.5 million years of bipedalism can’t be wrong!

The GR 20 is a truly fantastic route. Gorgeous views and lots of challenging walking and scrambling. I’d highly, highly recommend it.

We often meet some great people on the Big Walks but this year seemed particularly rich in that respect. Which was great since we ended up walking it two weeks later than this year’s Big Walk crew! Though as a bonus Russ, who was part of that trip, managed to meet us to ascend Monte Cinto, the highest peak on the island, just before he flew back.

There were people on the route who had done some of the more interesting routes around the world too. Some we’d done, some we’d heard of and some we noted for future reference…

We actually doubled back to miss the last stage (taking the standard GR20 instead of the Alpine Variant we’d used the day before)  to allow us to turn south for a day’s walk to connect to the Mare-Mare Sud. We joined at the half-way point and walked into Porto-Vecchio, thereby saving a day of bus rides out of Conca (the actual end point of the GR 20) and giving us another extra couple of days of walking.

The Mare-Mare Sud is nice enough but suffered somewhat from the “Green Tunnel” effect that is apparently prevalent on the Appalachian Trail.  There were very occasional views as we popped out of the forest but for long stretches it was just trees. Regardless, it still beat the heck out of spending the day on two different buses!

The GR 20 has a reasonably scary reputation and is often referred to as “The hardest way-marked route in the world” (note – that’s “way-marked” route – you can make up your own routes that are harder than this of course). But it’s all very subjective, so all I can do is relay our own experience and perhaps a little of the feelings of others we met along the way.

Overall, we certainly thought it was very hard work, but never more technically challenging than an easy British Grade I scramble. What’s that? A scramble is “A walk where you need to use your hands” and on a grade one you’d not expect to need a rope (it’s rather ill defined, but from what I’ve been taught; there are three grades, grade three is essentially very easy climbing, with a rope and a very occasional bit of leader-placed protection – attachment to the rock).

If you’re used to scrambling, nothing on the route poses a problem. There are a few sections that feel exposed, but there isn’t much that has the potential to really mess you up badly. And any parts that do have that potential are protected with chains and cables to hold on to.

But the point is, the GR 20 is damned hard work!

To give you some idea, we walked most of the route with a great couple of Scottish lasses, one of which has been a full time walking and skiing guide for around twenty-five years and she found the route hard work (she’d done it before so she knew what was coming). But note, that’s hard work, not hard technically. As we agreed one evening over some local Corsican red wine, it’s the sustained nature of the broken terrain. On some days you rarely get into a regular stride. It’s small step, large step, larger step, small step etc. For sections, it doesn’t let up for hours.

That being said, we met people carrying fairly “impressive” (large!) pack weights who’d never, ever done any walking with a pack before and they were coping. More of an endurance exercise in their case perhaps and personally I’d have chosen something that wasn’t so punishing for my first GR, like a section of the GR5. Of course there were more experienced walkers with lighter packs that were doubling stages. They said it wasn’t at all easy, but it was clearly doable.

We also met people that were accomplished long distance walkers who were finding it very tough because they’d not scrambled before and they had thought the days mentioned in the guide book looked too short: they are not! One guy had walked the Appalachian Trail, among other long distance paths, and had decided to double-up sections of the GR 20 – and said he was regretting it! The sections are short in distance because they’re simply very tough walking.

It’s probably worth saying that many people had the impression that the second section is easier than the first. Well, to us it wasn’t very much easier at all. There are still sustained sections of broken terrain. And there are also very many beautiful sections in the south. As Russ put it “There wasn’t a day I thought I could have happily missed out”. For instance, the Alpine Variant on the penultimate day, ending at Bavella (the picture above), was one of the absolute highlights.

There are several accessible peaks just off route that are well worth doing as part of the days (though Monte Cinto really requires a clear extra day). We did Monte Cinto, Monte Ritondu, Monte d’Oro and Tower III (which is tiny, but a great scramble). But we missed Paglia Orba and Monte Renosu due to the fact the routes have a reputation for being tricky to find and the weather wasn’t good on those days. The scrambling on the side peaks is often a little harder than the main route (with Paglia Orba being particularly tricky apparently). The route marking for the peaks (usually yellow blazes) is rather sketchy at times to say the least but the red/white blazes of the GR were excellent throughout.

One mistake, that’s hard not to make, is to leave too little time. There really are 15 stages and travelling on Corsica can take a long, long time. Check online and be aware that timetables become even more sparse on Sundays and after the end of September, and that strikes are not unknown!

If possible you’d ideally have 15 days’ walking, plus 1 day for Monte Cinto and 1 day’s rest somewhere. Then at least one day each side for travelling between home and each end of the route (probably more). It can be done in less time of course but it’s a harder proposition and can make the final stages far less relaxing than they could be. If you have to double up, I’d avoid doing so for the first few stages to allow your stamina to build.

Also, the inov8 Roclites coped absolutely fine, including the extra peaks, and have plenty of mileage left in them. I would hate to try this route in restrictive, heavy “clod-hopping” traditional boots. They’d make it way harder and increase the injury risk. But that’s really another posting…

Overall, if you can cope with having to put your hands down on the rock to negotiate some of the trickier lumps, you can cope with this walk. Just don’t underestimate the stamina needed to walk it. But above all, don’t miss it!

So, we’re going to Corsica after all.

Amazingly we may even meet up with one of the Big Walk crew to hit the highest peak, since he’s spending some more time on the island after he completes the GR20.

Packing has been interesting since we were mostly packed, but we can’t really be sure just how close we were to finishing since rather a lot has happened since then… And things like batteries need to be charged again, the fridge cleared out and the half packed bags emptied to see how much kit made it inside before we got the phone call.

We hope the weather will hold, the huts will still have some food left and the public transport will still be running!

And whilst we’re walking, we’ll be lugging the old Spot tracker with us (I may be tempted to the new, lighter one next year).

This page should contain the track logs and stats:

Red Yeti’s GR20

Edit: Updated to correct link

Edit: Removed flash version, as it didn’t work, and second link, as that’s now above.

Edit: Oh and I may be trying the Twitter whatsit as well – just have a look here and I may have sent a text on what we’re up to:

http://twitter.com/RedYetiDave