Day 41–Wednesday, August 9. Fos (11.5 miles)

We finally made the half way point of the GR10. Would you believe we thought we could do this trail in just 6 weeks? Looks like we have one hell of a day in store for us tomorrow–283 miles on the GR10.

I am so thankful we broke this day into two. Even with climbing 2300′ yesterday, we still had 2600′ to climb today with over a mile to descend into Fos. If it hadn’t been for Fred pushing us on, we would have stopped about 5 miles sooner at the first Cabane we came to on the down side from the pass.

The climb up this morning was kind of a surprise to us for two reasons: 1) it was actually a steady incline with switchbacks, and 2) we made the stages in the times estimated in the French edition of the guidebook–we are getting close to hiking like the French (except I don’t ever see us running on the trail–up or down).

We stopped for lunch just before our first pass of the day. Initially, I was going to filter a liter of water and make a sports drink, but the weather quickly turned cold and foggy (surprise, we’re coming to a pass and it gets foggy). Instead, I boiled water for hot tea for all three of us. Before we finished lunch, the temperature had dropped below 40F and it started to rain. An older couple came to where we were eating with the intention of climbing to the frontier, but when the rain started, they turned around and went back down.

The rain stayed with us all day until just before we got into Fos. The guidebook told us we were going to be spending a few miles on the frontier–I had visions of wide open spaces that had cowboys and Indians firing at us. It was probably just as well that we had fog so we wouldn’t be targeted. I was a little disappointed when Fred told us frontier is just the French word for border.

Two miles into our downhill we came to our first cabane. My feet were soaked and I was feeling hot spots develop on my feet so I gladly went in. There were candles and a fireplace inside (as well as bugs and evidence of mice, so don’t get too romantic of a picture). I lit the candles to try and warm the place us while I took off my boots and socks. It was so cold that my feet were steaming when I took off my boots.

I wanted to stay here for the night but Pam and Fred both voted to move on. I was going to pull rank when I remembered I was just a defeated husband, so I wrung out my socks and soldiered on. It’s not too often Pam wants to go further than I do, so I had better seize the day. Fred kept saying it was only 3 1/2 hours down–I knew better.

One of the hazards of hiking is having a song get stuck in your head. This happens to me almost daily. Today, it started out with the theme from F-Troop, but when the rains kept coming and we were slipping and sliding down the trail, it was replaced by Paul Simon’s “Slip Sliding Away.” It’s miserable having a mind that can’t be controlled or shut off.

5 hours later we strolled into Fos. Fred had managed to get us reservations at the local gite d’etape (I honestly don’t know the difference between gites, refuges, auberges, and cabanes). We got there right at 7:30, the time that supper is normally served. We looked in and saw Louis from last night already inside.

As we were taking off our soaked boots, an English family came up the street to the gite. We quickly dropped all our stuff in our room and came back down for dinner. Tonight was rare for us, 6 English speakers and only 4 French. One of the French was Eric Chaigneau, the creator of www.gr10.fr, one of the websites we used when planning our trip here.

Fred has been pulling double duty the last few days acting as interpreter and guide for us. What a stroke of luck we had meeting him in Germ. After dinner, Eric made a podcast recording for his website and interviewed us about why we were hiking the GR10. The podcast should be available sometime after September. Who would have thought my first interview would have international reach.