Category: 2017 GR10

Dateline–Banyuls-sur-Mer

The French hiking world, nay, the entire French community was shaken to its core by the events that have taken place in this tiny Mediterranean Seaside village in the last 24 hours. The French Federation of Professional Hikers has been set back to pre WWII levels with the loss of it’s top ten competitors. At the center of this international controversy is a seemingly innocuous pair of American hikers who, may, in fact, be the most diabolical couple to ever inhabit the planet.

Let’s recap the events as they have unfolded. Over 15 French semi-professional hikers completed the GR10 yesterday in outstanding hiking weather of gale force wind and freezing rain–gloriously miserable hiking weather to test these, soon to turn professional hikers. As expected, all of the hikers were finishing the last leg of the GR10 before 2p, the accepted ending time for hiking. Several hours later, however, the American couple strolled into town seemingly without a care in the world. They had just completed the GR10 in a staggering 78 days. You read correctly, 78 days.

All of the competitors were notified of the time and place for the awards ceremony to cap the end of the hiking season. This ceremony is where the American couple showed their true purpose and cunning nature.

After the majority of awards had been presented, including the induction of the new class of “French Professional Hikers 2017” the award for slowest time was presented to Pam “Bunny T” and Curtis “Easily ForGotten” Himstedt, or “the Hiking Himstedt’s” as they call themselves.

What a misnomer “Easily ForGotten” is. He will surely go down in the annals of world history ahead of Napoleon, Stalin, and Hitler as the most ruthless people to ever live. And “Bunny T” which implies speed yet she is involved in this worst speed performance of all time.

The previous record for slowest GR10 Traverse was 65 days (comparable to the Chicago Cubs World Series losing streak) completed way back in 1981 and thought to be safe for all time. The middle aged French couple whose lackluster performance led to their legally changing their names in a sealed court proceeding (where, in exchange for new identities, they donated all their hiking gear to a paraplegic hiking organization and agreed to never don a pack again in their lifetime) followed by forced emigration from France.

The “Hiking Himstedt’s” refused to read the acceptance speech prepared for them by “FoFF”, yet somehow were allowed stage time after the award presentation. Following is the speech Easily ForGotten gave.

“We would like to thank the French Federation of Professional Hikers for the recognition of our efforts crossing the Pyrenees. The GR10 was a much tougher trail than we anticipated it to be. We truly believed that we were prepared for the challenge of this trail after having completed the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path and the Camino Francais.”

So far so good, but this is the point at which they changed their tone. “When the trail got too tough for us, we would take a day off in the closest village and regroup–after all, hiking is supposed to be an enjoyable and fun experience.”

The crowd was stunned by such an outrageous sentiment. Everyone knows that hiking is a serious sport where the competitors can only better themselves through sacrifice and pain. Three people in attendance suffered brain aneurysms and were immediately rushed to the local trauma care unit. EFG acted as if he were oblivious to the catastrophe as it unfolded.

He mockingly went on to say “Next up for us is the Tour du Mont Blanc” at which point the couple calmly and smugly left the awards stage and have disappeared from public view ever since.

The statement they refused to read at the presentation follows: “We are disgraced by our poor performance on the GR10. We are a disgrace to the hiking world and we are left with no alternative other than to agree to quit hiking altogether and return to normal corporate living. Thank you for your patience and we ask your forgiveness. We are well aware of the high regard the French public holds for the sport of hiking and we hold our heads in shame at our pitiful performance.”

The current record holder of 22 days for the HRT (name withheld pending notification of family) literally died from his head exploding when he heard EFG say “hiking is supposed to be an enjoyable and fun experience.” In the aftermath of the Himstedt’s speech, the No 3, 4, and 9 hikers in the French world cut off their own legs as a sign of protest. They signed a joint statement saying “We no longer wish to be members of the sacred sport in which the Himstedt’s can willfully show disregard for the spirit and sanctity of its true nature.”

We have obtained access to the couple’s blog where they continuously complained about the expected hiking times and blatantly stated that they routinely doubled the times as their personal targets. We checked with FoFF to ask exactly how they arrived at the said times. The FoFF representative stated, “We monitor highly trained racing snails that we release on each section of trail. Each snail has a radio chip attached to it so that it’s path and time are constantly monitored. The reasoning behind using the snails is that if you can’t hike faster than a plate of escargot, you have no business on the trail.”

The newly elected President of France is now faced with the toughest crisis any elected leader has been forced to face–track down and stop this American “hiking” couple before their insidious ideology infects the whole of the French nation. They must be stopped at all costs. To this end, all intelligence communities in Europe have been retasked to track down EFG and Bunny T before their influence spreads even wider. The head of Interpol was quoted as saying “We are now engaged in the largest man hunt of all time–bigger than the hunt for Bin Laden. We expect this to be resolved much more quickly than the Bin Laden search as he had admirers and capitol resources throughout the world. This American couple has limited resources and no friends.”

How were they able to complete such a travesty of a traverse in any case? This crossing surpassed the previous slowest record by a stunning 13 days; they had to have assistance to achieve such a slow time. Sifting through the couple’s blog, we seem to have uncovered a “Paris connection” which indicates help from within the French community. We contacted a Patrick and Anne who knew the Himstedt’s on the trail. Patrick’s statement “We thought something was terribly wrong with their speed and tried to avoid them, but they routinely hiked past 2p on an almost daily basis and would catch up to us. We even left the trail for two days to try to bypass them, yet they caught us once again.” This reporter then asked if it were true that Patrick and his wife would soak their feet in mountain streams (a clear violation of French hiking standards) at which point he responded “This interview is over. Please direct any further inquiries through my legal counsel.”

Other members of the Paris cell include a Fred M. And a Stefan H. who we have not been able to reach for comment. The extent of this French connection has not been determined, but even Popeye Doyle is a suspect at this point.

Upon further investigation, a mysterious international connection has been uncovered as well. There seems to be an inordinate number of Pete’s and Peter’s involved. Whether this is a code name or a person has yet to be determined, but there is a Peter and Alaina in Australia; Peter and Marcia in Maine, USA; a Peter from the Netherlands involved with a doping scandal; and a Pete in Canada who is currently being sought as the possible mastermind of the entire operation.

When the French president contacted the American President Trump for assistance in this search, Trump responded “Build a wall to keep them out of the country.” When it was explained they are already in the country, Mr Trump responded “If they are already there, build a series of walls around the country eventually trapping them inside. I mean yuge walls in tighter and tighter circles until you have them.” When the White House was contacted for confirmation, a representative stated that Mr Trump meant use shock collars and not build walls.

A former employer of EFG was contacted. Brad B. confirmed that “Curtis Himstedt is a menace. He personally set my career back a decade and I have only known him 3 years. That’s a great indication of the range of destruction he is capable of. Hiring him was the worst professional mistake I ever made. If he shows up at my place, I’ll take care of the problem for you. I’m a member of the board of the NRA and your pansy ass gun laws have created this problem. We’ll clean up the mess for you Europeans, once again.” When it was pointed out that the Himstedt’s are Americans, Mr B snapped “Do you want my help or not?”

As of press time, contracts have been released for the construction of walls all over France.

The hiker dominoes started falling at 5:20 this morning. As soon as the first hiker got done rattling all the plastic in his pack at 5:40 and left, the second hiker started rattling all the plastic in his pack. The dominoes kept falling until 7:30 when the last hikers left the cabin. Most unfortunately, I was now at 130% of bladder capacity and no hope of sleep was left.

As surprising as this may sound, Pam and I took our time getting ready in the hopes that the rain and wind might die down. Just the opposite happened, the intensity of the wind increased and the rain tuned to a downpour. At 9, we decided we had better just accept that we were not going to get a break and began our last day of hiking on the GR10.

We ended the trail just as we began it–in the rain. Except this time, it was 30 degrees F colder with a hint of hail at times. The biggest mistake we have made is telling the trail our intentions. Any time we have let the trail know what we had planned, it would turn on us to make our plans fail. Today was no exception.

What was supposed to be a triumphant last day of hiking for us, instead, it turned out to be our most miserable day on the trail in two and a half months. We both wore all the clothing we had (3 pairs of underwear and 3 pairs of socks are probably too much padding, but we’ll know better next time). For the third time in 5 months, I even wore my rain kilt.

In total, we only had less than 1000′ of gain but over 5000′ of loss to get back to sea level. This will be the first time in over two months we will have descended to Missouri altitude levels. We went over 4 passes today and at each pass, it was apparent to us that the GR10 was taking it personally that we were going to complete the trail and was no longer just trying to stop us, it was trying to kill us by blowing us over the passes.

Even with her working against us, we strolled into Banyuls a little before 5 so we could end this ordeal and still find a place to stay at a reasonable time.

In total, we have hiked 565 miles on the GR10 and climbed almost 165,000′ (and fortunately, descended the same amount, the sea hasn’t risen yet). That is the equivalent of climbing Mt Everest from sea level to summit 6 times (and we didn’t use supplemental oxygen even though there were many times it would have come in handy). In total, we took 9 days completely off and had 7 “nero” days (less than 5 miles hiking per day).

To date this year, we have accumulated well over 1325 miles between the 3 trails we have hiked so far. The physical toll on Pam has been hardest. Even though she has lost almost 20 pounds, she is now walking like an old lady from the pain in her: hips, feet, legs, knees, back, neck, and toenail about to fall off. As for me, I’m as spry as a young trophy husband.  I have lost so much weight, I can even wear Pam’s old hiking pants (and they are big on me).

We got in town too late to walk with the marching band that escorts arriving hikers to the Mairie which is the official ending point of the GR10 (apparently they stop at 2p). We were informed of a special awards ceremony later this evening that we have been invited to. Finally, some recognition for all of our efforts.

After only 8 months of marriage, I have been affected in ways I never thought were possible. I used to be able to read a guidebook and map. I was convinced we had made our last climb of over 900m (3000′) 4 days ago and that we had crossed our last 4000′ peak yesterday. I now read maps like my wife because we had a 3500′ climb today and went over a 4100′ peak. Marriage is slowly sucking the intelligence out of my head and turning me into a blond.

We are convinced there are forces that don’t want us to complete this trail. Look at what has happened to us the last few days: we came across a wild boar hunt that happens once a year and are forced off the trail; markers come up mysteriously missing (three times today, alone); as we approach Pic Neoulous today, gale force winds try to beat us off the mountain; we have been swarmed by flies two of the last three days; heat stroke temperatures in the morning, freezing rain in the afternoon; horrendous revelations about German culture that nearly paralyze us with dread; and the list goes on.

There’s only one possible explanation–the trail, itself, wants to make sure we are worthy to actually be the first to completely thru-hike the GR10. We have met dozens of people who “claim” to be hiking the entire trail, yet, when questioned, are actually taking short cuts or alternate routes, or just skipping large sections because the route doesn’t make sense to them. Even tonight, we are sharing a cabin with 4 young people hiking the “entire trail” but they are talking about switching trails and skipping sections. They are thru-hiking the trail in 47 days or less without having done the entire trail.

This morning, we lost the trail twice before we were even a mile from Le Perthus. I was frustrated enough to consider taking a bus after we had walked the wrong way for 1/2 mile and gained an extra 100m of elevation–exactly what the trail was trying to get me to do. Once we found the correct trail, we were swarmed by flies again. We looked like we were in pepper swirling around us they were so thick. We were actually praying for wind and rain to get rid of them. The trail answered loud and clear.

As we were approaching the last 4000′ peak of the trail, the winds finally picked up to the point where any flies that tried to approach us ended up in North Africa. This was the ultimate test the trail was throwing at us and we knew it was a test to make sure we really wanted it, that we were worthy, and that we were French (after all, the GR10 would like the first thru-hikers to be from France). We understood the test and responded by throwing it a string of French: “l’addition, si vous plait”, “merci bou coup”, “gite”, “l’eau”, “que sera, sera”–we threw it everything we had. This didn’t seem to be enough to satisfy it though. As we got near the peak (the trail doesn’t actually cross the peak but goes about 20 meters below it), we chose to show the trail that not only were we willing to hike the entire designated path, that we were willing to do extra side trips as well.

We climbed to the top fighting the wind all the way. There is a tower at the top that was built in 1886. Once we both touched the tower after climbing all the way to up with our packs while, other, less worthy people stayed to the trail and ran off the peak as quick as possible, the wind stopped and all was calm. We had proven our worth. We have taken all the crap this trail has thrown at us: people running us off the trail; sheep crap in every imaginable location; biting flies that are so adamant about getting your blood they won’t let go even when you smash them; twisted ankles; missing shops; spit on sandwiches; missing and mismarked sections of trail; even a rejected credit card at lunch today; on and on. It’s all been a test to make sure we would stay the course.

With the winds completely calm; we could hear a voice carrying in the distance. We were expecting to hear “yes, you have satisfied me and are worthy”, but we heard “piss off, it ain’t over until it’s over” and then the winds returned with rain. The trail was pissing in our face one last time. We didn’t care, because no matter what, we are finishing this damn trail tomorrow.

We wanted to get off of the peak and into the forest below to get out of the rain. We followed the markers around the communication complex on the top and found a trail leading steeply down, just like the guidebook described. “A trail”, not “the trail”. It’s all so clear to me now, the dead guy is working with the trail to break us. This guy is an excellent assistant to the trail. Not one time that we have referred to the book, did it actually provide any helpful information. The first time we lost the trail today, we referred to the book: “In 2 mins take a sharp turn left, N, leaving the main path. The path curves round to the E, and in a few minutes joins a road. Go ESE along the road to a junction. Go straight across the junction into a field and climb the edge of the field to the road above. Then left, N, past the church at…”

I received an article from AARP describing how to bring up the subject of prostrate problems with younger people and how to make the topic pertinent and interesting to them. Why am I talking about this now? Because it has the exact amount of relevance to the trail as the description from the dead guy does–it’s not the least bit helpful.

We eventually deduced where the trail “should” be and traversed the side of the mountain through the woods. We actually found the trail without having to backtrack all the way to the top. We still had the winds to deal with, but we were convinced we were going to make it now. We are on the 50th itinerary in the book. We wanted to cover about 1/3 of this day today so we would only have 8 miles to finish up tomorrow. After only covering 2.5 miles and getting beaten up by the wind, we came to the refuge where we currently are holed up.

The wind and rain are beating down on the cabin but we have a fire going, we had a nice supper of ramen noodles, and we’ve got enough food to make it down to the sea tomorrow. We’re calling a truce with the GR10 for the night. It’s not that it doesn’t want us to finish, it’s that we’ve been on this trail so long that it’s afraid of separation anxiety.

When we checked into the hotel last night, it was clear to the owners that my wife had a clear case of “Snicker-lust.” Walking into the bar/lobby that was the first thing she noticed. It was too apparent when she pulled me down, whispered in my ear (actually a whisper yell, “I want those Snickers”). I tried to appease her by buying two, but when she kicked me in the back walking to the stairway, she had clearly revealed her hand to the owners.

As soon as we were in bed for the night, I heard the sound of a hole saw and drill–they were taking no chances with this one. They installed a new lock between the rooms and bar to prevent any late night Snicker-walking. Sure enough, when I woke up to pee at 3, Pam got out her spork and told me “Go get those Snickers.” I was afraid to go back to the room empty handed, so I took a FULL pepper shaker (if you’ve got to steal, steal big). She slapped it out of my hand and said “If you’ve got a job to do, just do it yourself” and stormed out of the room. 5 minutes later she came back empty handed and told me to sleep on the floor. That was much better than other times when she has been foiled in one of her sprees.

Getting up in the morning, we had breakfast with the only other hotel guest, a retired man from Belgium. Breakfast wasn’t much–just a croissant, a piece of bread, one pad of butter each, coffee, and orange juice. No hotel staff present and nothing to steal. I could tell she was going to be in a fowl mood all day.

For the most part today, the trail was on road and forest track. It wasn’t particularly rough, but it was a tad warm. We only had a 700′ climb on the roads, so hopefully she would calm down with the easy walk. When we got to the top of the climb, we saw men with shotguns. They motioned us to travel fast and keep quiet, which we did. Surprisingly, the appearance of firearms turns Pam into a scared little girl–she can’t get away from them fast enough.

When we got to an intersection with a side road and the GR10, there was a French man standing guard there experiencing, what I like to call, “The Barney Fife” effect. Give a man a gun and a colored vest and now he’s an authority figure, especially once he pulls that bullet out of his shirt pocket. He kept telling us to turn left when I wanted to go straight. Pam just took off running down the left turn so I had to follow. I got her to slow down long enough to convince her we were screwed if we went this way because we didn’t have a map or even an idea of where we were. I got her to return to the intersection to only have Barney get more agitated. I wanted to wait until someone who spoke English came along, but Pam was down the road once again.

Occasionally, I assert, and maybe even, over-assert myself when I’m thrown out of my OCD comfort zone. This was one of those times. We had a nice “discussion” and I took off walking fast down the road hoping to meet someone speaking English. A mile and a half later, I met a French couple heading up where we had just been forced to leave. They showed me the convoluted route we would have to take to avoid the one day wild pig hunt in progress above. As we were looking over the map, a vehicle came down from above and told us we could walk the road through the hunt. I was a bit peeved.

Bottom line, we walked an extra 3 miles total to end up at the same intersection we were at an hour and a half before. Barney was gone, but we had burned up time and energy. We clearly were not going to be able to make it to where we wanted to tonight. Hello another extra day on the GR10. Assuming no more incidents, we will finish on Friday, September 15. We’ve got to get hold of the French Federation of Professional Hikers (FFoPH) of “FoFF” because they wished to give us a special award when we made it to Banyuls. At the last refuge we stayed at, we had given them our tentative arrival date as 14-09-17.

We still made pretty good time (for us) and went past the old Roman ruins and Fort de Bellegarde on our way into Le Perthus. We wanted to just pick up a few groceries and go on, but both of our feet (four feet in total) were shot. We didn’t even pretend to agonize over the decision, we just got a hotel and dropped our packs. We did do our grocery shopping (1/2# of M&Ms, cokes, popcorn, and Oreos–never too much junk food on the trail).

After a nap, we went back out to grab some supper. Le Perthus is on the border between Spain and France. Actually, it is the border between Spain and France. We are staying in France, but Spain is the next building. Over 20,000 people/day come to town to shop but only 542 live here. Everywhere else in France, you can’t even think about getting food until 7:30. Here, everything closes at 7. We left our hotel at 6:55 to get supper.

We found the only open bar in town. It was actually a really nice place and everyone was very friendly. Our waiter, Adria, was a nice young man who had spent a month in Central America just last year. He told us we were the first Americans that had ever visited the Bar. We talked about his experience in Honduras, Panama, and Salvador (we had been to Honduras earlier this year).

The guys at the table next to us heard us talking. One of the guys spoke excellent English even though he thought he didn’t. One thing everyone was clear upon, they didn’t want to be presented as French or Spanish, but as Catalonian. I’m not exactly clear on the history of the area and I need to check this out, but Catalan is an ancient Nation that extended from South of Barcelona all the way up to North of where we currently are in France and west almost to Andorra. I think there are almost 10 million people who consider themselves Catalonian first and they have their own language. In fact, almost all the signs in this area are in French and Catalan (and I apologize if I am getting any facts incorrect of misspelling names). All of the people we met tonight spoke anywhere from 2 to 4 languages and were very knowledgeable about the USA.

We sat and talked with them for well over an hour about the beauty of the area, sports, history of the US, Trump (surprisingly, not well liked universally here–that’s a joke, it wasn’t a surprise at all), and travel. We had a great time and meeting new people is one of the primary reasons we like to travel. I just wish we could skip out on the Barney Fifes of the world and could speak more than just English. Thanks to everyone for an enjoyable supper.

We awoke in the middle of the night by strange noises and large, heavy footsteps next to the tent. I told Pam to ignore it, that it was probably one of the horses had gotten free. After about a half hour of the rummaging sounds going on outside, I was afraid we might have missed our best shot at seeing a bear. I will admit to being lax in baiting our campsites of late, but last night, we had French “pork and beans” (aka “sausage and lentils”) and I had thrown the uncleaned can into the trash across the parking lot from us. By the time I realized we had a wildlife encounter in progress; it was done. I’ve got to get some extra honey at the next grocery store–time is running out.

Since we went to bed before 8 last night, we actually woke up around 7:30 without an alarm. Notice I said woke up and not got up. I had to get the coffee and tea going before Pam would start stirring. We had muesli, bread, and the rest of the chestnut sauce that we thought was a Nutella knock off. We were done and on the trail by 9:15–after just four months of hiking, we’ve managed to get our morning prep time down to an hour and a quarter from two hours.

Today was out last big climb of 2600′ in a single push. Tomorrow will be the last time we have to climb over 3000′ in a day. Today was also the last day we will be over 4500′ above sea level. It actually looks like we will finally finish this trail.

The day started with the continued threat of rain. Seeing that it rained almost all night, we considered the threat to be real. The trail was in great condition, though. The rains didn’t cause the trail conditions to deteriorate yet they did cause the flies to stay away (a much welcome relief from yesterday).

Climbing down from our high point today, we were straddling a ridge headed straight to the Mediterranean Sea. To our right, we could see Spain and the Spanish Mediterranean and to our left, France (including Marseilles) and the French Mediterranean. This was the first time we could clearly see the Mediterranean and we walked all the way here from the Atlantic to see it.

Since we are setting a trail record for slowest traverse of the Pyrenees, we can’t decide if we are going to finish the trail in 2 or 3 days from now. Honestly, we are a little tired so we can’t decide if we should stick to the itinerary and do two 15 mile days, or extend the record out another day and do three 10 mile days. It all depends on the amount of whining that starts around 3p (and I’ll see what Pam wants then as well).

When we limped into Las Illas, we stopped at the gite to check prices and capacity before we headed to the hotel/restaurant. Pam claims to be tired of my Ramen Noodle creations and wants a “real” dinner (whatever that means–but will love be the number 1 ingredient?). I’m deeply hurt, after hiking all day and then cooking gourmet meals while she takes a nap, to not be appreciated. Like a good husband, I acquiesced to her wishes (when I saw the beer tap). Why stay at a gite and walk all the way to the restaurant and back when we can get a private room and only deal with her snoring?

Last night there were 13 people at the hotel. Tomorrow night there will be 18. Tonight, we didn’t make reservations but there are only 3 people including us. It pays to not plan too far ahead, Pete.

Try as we might, we just couldn’t find peace last night. The alarm went off at 7:45 and Pam did the most unusual thing I have ever seen her do–she got up without a snooze. Clearly, she is still disoriented from Tobias’ revelation yesterday.

We went down for our breakfast buffet in which we were the only attendees. Pam quickly became herself once again, as she stuffed her pockets and underwear full of items (I don’t know if I’ll want any butter knowing where it was stuffed). She made me act as lookout while she looted the tea box. I cautioned her that we were the only two people present and if we drank 150 tea bags, it might look suspicious. She slapped me so I just sat at the table and wept while she continued her spree.

After breakfast, we acted as Martin’s mule and took a sweater to the local tobac store where we were given a plain wrapped brown package to carry to Banyuls. On Saturday, when Martin and Tobias had gotten to the Mines Gite before us, they had agreed to carry the sweater down to town but because of their shameful exit yesterday afternoon, we were held responsible for completing the transaction for them.

Next mission was grocery shopping (even though we have enough butter and tea to live on for the next month). The first thing Pam looks for whenever we go into a store is peanut butter. I heard a terrible racket from aisle 2 (it was actually just Pam singing, but anyone that has heard her sing knows what I’m talking about). Pam had found peanut butter. Not only that, directly behind her were tortilla wraps. I couldn’t get her to help with any other shopping. She kept picking all the peanut butter jars off the shelf and putting them in the basket. I finally got her to go outside while I paid. I restocked the shelf and only took one jar. If I come up missing, everyone should be aware of the motive.

We went back to the hotel. We had been told before we left to go shopping that the hotel was closed on Monday, so we could take as long as we wanted to get out. I chose to take a long hot bath and cry in the tub (hoping the steam would hide my red eyes) while Pam packed. We managed to hit the trail at a respectable 10:30–respectable for us, anyway.

I know I promised to leave the dead guy out of this, but there were just too many mistakes today to ignore. Even in his own narrative, he contradicted himself. He shows an elevation profile where we have to climb over 900m (3000′) yet states we only climb 2/3 of that. Then, and this is the kicker, he states there is a gite and a refuge in a village where we have planned to stay (because of his info). When we got to the village, there is only one resident and she told us there hasn’t been a gite or refuge in town for over a decade.

We were frazzled. The trail, even with the extra gains, wouldn’t have been so bad except for one little thing–the MF flies! From the time we climbed out of the valley where Arles-sur-Tech was until we got into the valley where Montalba is, we were in a constant swarm of flies. We’re talking Alaska in the springtime black flies flying in every open orifice. I didn’t drink any water today because I didn’t want to swallow a fly. Even Pam was swearing at them. I just walked as fast as I could in a daze. I spent my day as my true self–a beaten man with his head down, too tired to even throw a tantrum. Yes, I am a married man.

There are 3 things I won’t miss when we are done with this trail: 3) livestock on the trail, 2) livestock minefields on the trail, and 1) FLIES. Yea, though I walk through the valley of flies, I shall fear no poop as long as they torment me.

By the time we got to Montalba, we were tired, thirsty, and hungry. We hadn’t stopped to eat or drink because of the fly torment. I would gladly go to another St Francis Christmas party rather than go through that valley again. We just set up the tent in the parking lot and took a nap–it was only 4 but I was out of energy and still in Hasselhoff shock.

We got up at 6 to have supper on the steps of an abandoned building. While we were finishing up, a nice German couple came down from the mountain and offered us a loaf of bread (I guess we looked pretty pathetic; without even trying to this time). This simple act has restored our faith in Germany and it’s people. When I mentioned David Hasselhoff to her, she said “You have Trump, our dark times are in the past.” We will visit Germany when we are done hiking.

We rarely set alarms when staying in a gite with other people. Who are we kidding, we rarely set alarms because Pam ignores them anyway. But usually in a gite, someone wakes up early and makes it impossible for anyone to sleep any longer. Not today. With only 6 of us all sleeping quietly, no one set an alarm so we all slept until after 8. It was pretty chilly out, so that made us go even slower. We managed to get on the trail sometime around 10 (and we weren’t the last ones out–I like having Martin and Tobias around).

The wind was blowing strong, but not quite Irma ranges. When we took a wrong turn and headed over an exposed mound, we found that we had to keep our poles in front of us or get blown down so we are guessing in the 50-60 mph range which is no joke on the side of a mountain. We managed to fight our way back to the road and find the trail. With a 4500′ drop in elevation today, we quickly got down into trees and some protection from the wind.

I really hate downhills. The path was very rocky and steep which was killing my ankles. They’ve never completely recovered so I try to go easy on them which means I move at a snail’s pace, or roughly twice the speed of Pam. After we dropped down one or two thousand feet, the trail became very pleasant walking but the damage had been done.

There must be hundreds of thousands of tons of scrap metal on this mountainside. The gite we stayed at last night used to be a miners dorm. We walked next to and over metal cables almost all the way into town. There used to be overhead buckets carrying mined materials down to the smelters in the valley. We even ran across some buckets and rail. There were also some towers still standing with the cables hanging from them. If the price of scrap metal ever rises, someone could make some money recovering all this.

By the time we got to town, I had pretty much made up my mind that I was done for the day. I knew Pam was all set to hike on once we got groceries–she’s ready to be done. I was afraid to broach the subject of calling it a half day when she started talking about hoping the grocery store was closed so we could relax all afternoon. Of course, I reluctantly agreed to stay in town if that’s what she really wanted to do even though it would mess up the schedule we had planned (a good husband never gives up the opportunity to acquiesce to his wife’s wishes).

We limped into the downtown area and liked the town right away. It has been 9 days since we’ve been in a large village. We found a pizza restaurant next to a hotel so we thought we were golden. When we walked into the hotel, Tobias and Martin were sitting on the veranda having a beer and invited us to join them for lunch. We accepted but only after we got a room to drop our stuff in.

We had just had a lunch, of sorts, on the trail, so we just ordered fries, sodas, and desserts while they had their lunch. We had pleasant conversation with them, but we learned a few disturbing facts about Germany which might prevent us from visiting there.

It’s very easy for a country to be duped into electing crappy leaders. Heck, it happens to all of us. I can accept the fact that sometimes countries think they are the best in the world and think they should rule the whole planet because they are the “master race” (everyone can get a little empire crazy–but two world wars is the limit before forgiveness is no longer possible). Almost everything that has happened in Germany’s past I can forgive and move on. Race cleansing, no country’s hands are completely clean on this topic. But the horrendous things Tobias told me will make me lose sleep for years.

Turkey has listed Germany as a “no travel” state. They did it out of revenge for being singled out by Germany, but they may be right. My hands are shaking even as I write this. Back in the 80s, I can’t go on…It’s too horrendous to contemplate. I guess I just have to come right out and say it. Back in the 80s, David Hasselhoff (of the “great” dramatic series “Knight Rider” and his Masterpiece Theater run to rival “Downton Abbey”–we all know “Bay Watch”) was a superstar singer in Germany. (I think I just threw up in mouth). I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to think of Germany as a potential world leader again knowing this fact about its people.

We were all a little shaken after lunch and had trouble making eye contact with each other. Martin and Tobias thought it best to move on to the next gite and travel ahead of us the rest of the way to Banyuls. We stayed behind. We did manage to stay civil and hug each other goodbye; it’s been a great hiking run, but we will never be able to think of them as before knowing that they even knew the words to a David Hasselhoff song. After they left, Pam and I went up to our rooms to bathe just to try to feel clean and Hasselhoff free.

After a little cry, we managed to pull ourselves together and make light of the situation. We walked around town a bit to see the home of the former capitalist pig that owned the mine and exploited the local workforce to his own benefit. Even seeing his corpulent lifestyle was not enough to shake us out of our slumber. We walked around in daze but identified places we needed to head to in the morning such as the Tobac Store, the Grocery Store, and the Tourist Info Center. We ended the evening with a visit to the Pizza Parlor for an early supper.

We headed back to the hotel to talk to family before turning in for good cries before a restless night of sleep filled with fitful visions of David Hasselhoff singing and dancing. I may never get a full night’s sleep again in my lifetime.

 

After finding out about our humiliating daily last place finishes yesterday, we decided to turn over a new leaf and not be the last ones out of the refuge today. We were actually on the trail before 8:30. Of course, we got a little stalled behind the refuge watching the sunrise, deciding on which route to take, so we were effectively eliminated from the “Earliest Start” award for the day.

Laura had told us about a plane crash on the trail (which was actually a helicopter, but it is a kind of plane). Our guidebook (may he Rest In Peace) actually had the trail with the crash listed as the official route while the shorter alternative is now the official route. We chose the longer route with an opportunity to witness morbidity.

No sooner had we started hiking than we got completely fogged in once again. We had managed to catch our first glimpse of the Mediterranean before the fog blocked our view. We were quite impressed with ourselves. After today, we will only be 4 days from finishing the GR10 and we will have hiked 8 full itinerary days in a row without a day off. Finally, at the end, we are starting to see some progress in strength and endurance (even if we aren’t up to French standards).

I’ve also noticed that all of my bitching early on about trail times has paid off in a big way in the Orrientales. Almost all of the trail signs have been replaced showing distances and NOT times to the next destination. My next crusade will be to get Europeans to use periods and not commas between the integer and the mantissa–“4,5 km” seems indecisive while “4.5 km” sounds and looks definitive. I might skip this crusade until our next European excursion.

The fog quietly turned to mist which annoyingly increased to rain. We went by a couple of cabins today that hikers are allowed to use. At the first, we started to go inside, but saw a large handwritten note “DO NOT SLEEP HERE. BED BUG INFESTATION.” Even with a steady rain, that destroys the desire to go inside. We opted to sit on the porch and have a candy bar with a couple of young French hikers heading in the opposite direction. They are planning to do the entire GR10 in 45 days. Their desire is to be able to turn pro within the next two years. The French are serious hikers and see all recommendations concerning time and trail days to be for those who are physically ill. If you are in good shape and healthy, knock at least 10% off for your goal. A 55 day trail becomes 45 to a healthy French hiker. Americans should automatically add 20% for being out of shape and stupid enough to elect someone like…

At the second cabin, we found it to be newly rebuilt and quite nice. We went inside to dry off and have some lunch. After we had been inside for about 20 minutes, Tobias opened the door. We thought that he and Martin were well ahead of us so we were quite surprised to see them. Our lunch break turned into a two hour escape from the rain.

Once we decided it wasn’t going to let up no matter how long we waited we all set out again. We had less than 4 miles to the next refuge. Martin and Tobias took off. Knowing how the French professional hiking circuit feels about us, they didn’t want to actually take the chance of being seen with us on the trail.

About half way up our afternoon climb of 1100′, I heard what I thought were sheep bells ahead of us. I never did see any sheep. When climbing, I usually get about 5-10 minutes ahead of Pam and then wait for her to catch up (she tends to stop a lot to take pictures, adjust straps, or just to annoy me). I heard her talking to someone as she was coming up the trail. She had managed to pick up 3 dogs will bells on their necks. All four of them were hiking single file up the trail with Pam in the “alpha” position.

As soon as they saw me, the “alpha” dog assumed his position right behind me, the obvious pack “alpha”. Pam did manage to maintain the number 3 spot in the pack ahead of the other two dogs. I found it very reassuring that the other two dogs remained behind Pam at all times. As long as I could hear their bells, I knew Pam was OK and behind me. I wonder if I could talk her into wearing a bell all the time so I know where she is.

By the time we reached the pass, the dogs had deserted us and the rain was now coupled with very strong winds. We pretty much ran the rest of the mile and a half to the refuge to get out of the weather. As we walked up to it, we saw Martin and Tobias in the hot tub outside. They had told us this refuge had a hot tub, but we thought they were kidding us. They had already told the manager inside to expect an elderly American couple so we were assured of spots in the gite.

I quickly dropped my pack, showered, stopped by the bar to get a beer, and hit the hot tub. I stayed out there for two beers until Pam told me to come inside an join her by the fireplace. After one more beer, we cooked our Ramen masterpiece and called it a night.

As of tonight’s entry, we only have 4 days and 58 miles left before we complete the GR10. We did catch a glimpse of the Mediterranean this morning, so we really do think we are going to finish this trail. At times, we have had our doubts. At other times, we have thought that our new home might just be perpetually hiking the GR10. We have enjoyed this trail, but we are ready to be done and to move on to the next hike.

Since we didn’t get “petite dejuneur” from the refuge, we chose to sleep in until almost 8. There was only one woman still sleeping when we got up, yet she still managed to beat us out of the refuge. Our string of last place starts still stands. Martin and Tobias (the two German guys we met in Py) barely beat us out of the refuge, yet we never saw them all day.

I learned something very sad today (sadder even than a baby lamb hovering over its dead momma). If you are standing next to a fresh steaming cow pie and the flies prefer to be on you rather than it, it’s time for a shower. I was never so sad for Pam before (yes, she married me).

The GR10 did something strange today–it stayed above 5000′ all day when it had the opportunity to dip down into a deep valley and make us climb all the way back up. We are actually in the middle of a four day stretch where we don’t descend below 4500′ and we love it. Don’t get the impression that the trail is staying level; we still manage to climb and descend several thousand feet a day, but it’s in smaller chunks of 1000′ or less at a time.

Since we are staying at altitude, even with a sunny clear day, the weather was quite pleasant for hiking. Today was the first time I was sweating with a cold nose and hands. Pam and I opted to wear our fleece hats and gloves today while hiking. The trail leads into a very popular area around Canigou–a 9000′ peak close to the Mediterranean. Martin and Tobias chose the GR10 alternate route leading over the peak while we decided to follow the GR10 proper.

The views were spectacular in all directions. Even though the Pyrennes Orientales are not as wild as the Ariege, they are quickly becoming my favorite portion of the trail. Now that we have a handle on the food situation, life seems to be going pretty good.

The French trail time for the day was 5:40. We did it in just under 8 hours after accounting for: a coffee break on the trail because we were dragging so bad in the beginning, an extended lunch overlooking the villages in the valley below us, and an unexpected wildlife encounter with an owl. I do have to say that we are a little disappointed with the low quantity and quality of wildlife we have encountered on the trail. Pretty much, all we have seen are marmots, a fox, 2 squirrels, an owl, and a couple of snakes. At first, I was impressed with the successful cohabitation of livestock and wilderness trail, but now I am seeing the result is really a lack of wildlife diversity.

Dinner conversations in the refuges still revolve around the “bear problem” in the Pyrenees. I’m from Illinios and I used to live in Chicago. Let’s talk about a real Bear problem. We have less than 50 Bears in the city, yet they are the daily topic of conversation around every dinner table in the city. The consensus seems to be to kill the entire group and start over from scratch. We also have some beloved Cubs in the city–maybe we can nurture them into the fearsome Bears we were used to back in the 80s. But enough sports.

Due to “technical difficulties” when we arrived at the CAF (Club Alpine Francais) refuge, they had not completed the daily awards presentation. We thought this might exist, but we have ran into several French hikers who encourage us to take our time because “after all, it’s not a race to hike the GR10.” We were in time to discover the list of daily awards presented to French hikers which include: “Earliest Up in the Refuge”; “First on the Trail”; “Noisiest Packer of the Day”; “First in to the Next Refuge”; “Fastest Trail Time of the Day”; and the coveted “Least Enjoyable Day.” It is, in fact a secret race that the French are running daily. It turns out that we have a string of Razzy Awards behind us all across The Pyrennes for “Longest Day,” “Latest Start,” and “Slowest Hikers.”

Seeing as how we were the last ones to arrive at the refuge (again) we just had to accept that we were not going to be able to make the professional French hiking circuit. We decided to drown our sorrows in a half liter of beer while talking with Tobias and Martin. We eventually moved inside to avoid the cold and have dinner where we met our first other Americans on the trail–Michael and Laura; a brother and sister team pretending to be a married couple to keep people from hitting on Laura. We had a very enjoyable dinner and conversation at our table of the only 6 English speakers in the refuge until we were “shsssed” so the awards ceremony could be completed.

I want to give her the benefit of the doubt because she is my wife. I will attribute it to just waking up and not having a fully functional brain. I’m sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with her being blond–in fact, the longer we are hiking, the less blond and more gray she is becoming. When she opened her eyes this morning, she said “Look at the sun shining in our window.” It was, in fact, the moon.

While we were having our breakfast, the owner came back in and was cleaning. She was much more friendly today. I guess the lesson is to never judge based upon first impressions. I know the first impression most people have of me is that I’m an assh…bad example. Just don’t judge based upon first impressions.

Like 99.9% of people, the first question she asked when she discovered we were Americans–“Trump?” Shoulder shrug and hanging head is the best response I have. It’s amazing how I’ve never met a Trump supporter in a foreign country–I guess they are all back home making America great again and don’t have time to travel outside of the USA (or think there is any need to travel outside of the USA).

The owners left to go for a hike before we were out of the place. It’s amazing how lackadaisical the French are towards money. I have actually walked out of a gite without paying and no one came after me. In the US, we don’t even get a key to a room until we pay; in France, we get a room, drinks, meals, extras and no one even asks if or how we can pay. I have yet to find a locked outer door in a gite or refuge. More often, like yesterday, we just walk in and grab a beer while we are waiting. I know there are large areas at home (more rural in scope) that operate with similar “honesty” policies. It’s just very refreshing to be a foreigner and still have automatic trust given.

Our focus today was get to Py and find a shop. It was only 3 miles up and over a pass into Py. We were in town by 11:30 thinking that if there was a shop, it would be closed for lunch from 12:30 to 2. What a pleasant surprise we had. A young woman is running a 3 room auberge with a restaurant open to the public and an epicure on the ground floor–she’s a one woman operation with a toddler in tow. She is cleaning up in Py.

We went into the epicure and started picking out foods we wanted. In between serving customers upstairs (and doing all the fresh cooking), she came down and totaled our bill and told us we could wait to pay by card if we wanted to have some lunch. We did want lunch. Even with all the beer last night, we are still running a pretty good calorie deficit. We ordered burgers, fries, salads, colas, desserts, and coffees. We gladly paid whatever she wanted as she calmed our food uncertainty and filled our bellies with an excellent meal. She didn’t gouge us at all and she could have since she was the only player within 10 miles. Instead, she was doing a brisk business with lots of customers.

I’ve been surprised that gite owners look upon backpackers as competitions to their business instead of a source of supplemental business. In the US, an owner of a country hostel would have figured out he could sell dehydrated meals to hikers and would start expanding his business. Here, most gite owners see backpackers as lost revenue because they are not paying for a bed at night and meals (which would average about 50 Euros/night–way out of the range of the younger crowd and the escapee Americans). I realize the gite owners are working hard to scrape a living out of a small crowd, but they could learn to expand their income base. Just an outsider’s observation.

More ear worms today. This time it was the Eurythmics. It is only natural that it would be a French theme since cheese is so much a part of daily life here. “Sweet dreams are made of cheese. Who am I to dis a bris?”

After our 2.5 hour grocery/lunch break, we decided we did have to move on. Today was the 6th day in a row where we have hiked the itinerary in it’s entirety. Either we are getting stronger or we want to finish the trail and move on. We only had another 6 miles after lunch which was predominately uphill. The guidebook said this was a popular destination tonight, but didn’t give any reason why.

There are lots of reasons why. We walked several miles next to a man-made mountain stream. It was amazing to imagine the amount of work it took to make and maintain this stream. Large pipes transport the water around washes to continue the stream. I would like to find out more about this and how it came to be, but my language skills are hindering me again.

When we got to the refuge, we ran into a French couple from Norther France. They’ve been hiking the GR10 in sections for 4 years and are planning to finish the same as us next Thursday. We also met a couple of young German men from eastern Germany who decided to drive to Banyuls and then take a bus to Py to hike back to their car.

Since we were so late arriving, they opened another dorm room and we were the only ones in it (see Pete, it still pays to be slow–try it sometime). After we cooked our supper outside on one of the picnic tables, we came back in to find 3 other people had come in even later than us. With any luck, none of them snore. We had already chosen our beds strategically by the window so we are in control of the room temperature–snore and we freeze you out.