Day 57–Friday, August 25. Goulier (12 miles)

First off, some house keeping. I guess I need to say this first, Happy 8th anniversary to my wife. That’s just the anniversary of our becoming a couple, we’ve still only been married 7 months, 8 days, and 2 hours–but who’s counting. Important note to self, when Pam says can you believe it’s been 8 years, do not respond with “it seems a lot longer” meaning it feels like we’ve always been together. Women just don’t think the same as men.

Next up, this is the day that Fred has left the trail in Merens which we won’t get to for another 4 days. Being hiking purists, we insist on not skipping any sections of the trail no matter how bad of a day’s hike might be–more on that in a moment.

First, a solemn moment for my brother-in-law, George. We received bad news today that he has passed from Europe–may he Rest In Peace. His original intent was to hike the GR10 with us, but he made the right call by skipping this because it would have killed him sooner. As it is, he wasn’t planning on leaving Europe until the middle of September. He was just three weeks shy of making his goal for the year. So, may he rest peacefully until December when we get back to start making plans for New Zealand. That should be more than enough recovery time.

So far, we have resisted everyone’s attempts to get us to skip sections of the trail and we have always had a pleasant surprise for us by not skipping. Today, our streak ended. I can say, without a doubt, this was the worst section of trail we have encountered on the GR10. They must have been running low on red and white paint because they didn’t want to waste any of it by putting an extra “X” on wrong turns (or putting the hashes on the correct trail either). We got lost/took the wrong turn/backtracked 4 times today which cost us an extra 2 hours of walking on an otherwise crappy trail.

The saddest part about this section is that it has a memorial to the “Father of the GR10” so you might think that this would be a well maintained and marked section of the trail–nay, nay, nay.

Pierre did a great job watching out for us last night and we had an excellent sleep. Almost too much of one because we didn’t wake up until 8:30. Even with the late wake up, we were on the trail by 9:37. We would have been better off sleeping an extra hour. Right off the bat we took a wrong turn (no “X”). This cost us 2 hours in my book but Pam insists it only cost us 43 minutes. This was 43 fresh minutes–my best hiking time of the day. Those 43 minutes stretch out to 2 hours of equivalent hiking time (EHT) by the end of the day when I’m wore down.

Not to mention all the energy I spent swearing up a storm about the trail. I tried to blame the guidebook, but it was surprisingly innocent in this case. If I would have listened to him, we could have just road hiked and had no problems. We chose to actually hike in the woods (which the author seems to hate).

We eventually got on the right track to only have it peter out at the other end where it’s supposed to cross back over to the road. More missing markings. We were close enough to the stream that we could find the bridge to cross and get back on the road. As soon as we got on the road, we saw a sign for the GR10 pointing in two different directions. It was advertising a shortcut (which we chose to avoid).

Our guidebook said to go to the end of the road and follow the trail up to Etang d’Izourt (a man-made lake for hydro-electric). When we got to the end of the road, there were markings in all directions–at least 4 different trails had red and white slashes (these markings are used on ALL trails which can be confusing at trail junctions). I was about ready to backtrack and take the shortcut option (we had walked enough extra miles and wasted too much time already). As I was about to give up (punctuated by a lot of swearing) we saw a trail runner that pointed us in the right direction.

We started up the trail; it was scary because it felt right and agreed with our guidebook. I’m always weary if the guidebook starts to make sense. I needed additional confirmation. We found a group coming towards us and they confirmed we were headed toward the correct lake. We’d have been happy if they stopped there, but they told us it was an hour away. For us, that means two hours. We stopped for lunch and considered our options. In the end, the purist won.

The trail was very crowded all the way up to the lake. We stopped and looked around a bit and then continued on the GR10 back up the valley we had just come down, but on a much higher trail (3000′ above the valley floor). We didn’t see a single person on this section of trail. For all the people claiming to hike the GR10 every year, a lot of people skip this section.

We were getting tired by now and it was the hottest part of the day. We didn’t leave the lake until almost 3p. Now that I’ve calmed down, the trail was pretty exciting running the 5 miles back. There were a few places that were a little “hairy” that required a little more effort that one might expect on a hiking trial (a couple of 5-6′ vertical scrambles which were difficult with heavy packs) and the trail was very narrow at times (less than a boot’s width and angled down and out with evidence of slides along the trail). Now I can say they were cool. Then, not so much.

By the time we got to the monument for the “father of the GR10,” we were pretty disappointed that better care on marking and maintaining this section of trail was no better than it was. We still had about 1000′ to drop into Goulier and we were beat. It was already past 7. We had passed a stone shelter that I was willing to stay at, but Pam was set on a shower and electricity at the gite–guess who wins when there are disagreements between us (and she will vehemently deny that she nearly always gets her way, but she does).

Now I can legitimately berate the dead guy again. When we got to the bottom of the decline, he said to take the road and head UP to town. We took the road up, and up, and up. After about 20 additional minutes of road walking (no, there weren’t any trail markings in either direction on the road) I figured out that we had overshot the town by 1/2 mile and 300′ of elevation gain. I was really pissed now and on a good rant (Pam would call it a tantrum, I call it venting). I was ready to quit the trail by the time we finally made it to town.

It was 8:30 and we just wanted to get to the gite. I stopped by one open house and the woman inside heard me say gite. She gave me a passionate explanation about the gite, but I couldn’t understand a word. I thanked her and headed to the town center. We found another local man who told us the gite was closed and would reopen sometime in October. We are slow, but I think we will be done before then.

Pam was crestfallen. We sat in the central plaza to filter water and cook supper in town. Since the town was almost empty, we thought we’d be ok. Our InReach died on the way into town so Pam had no lifeline to her kids (even though the only time they have initiated a conversation over it was to ask for money–I wasn’t too concerned about it being dead).

We’ve been extremely low twice before on this trail and close to quitting. Both times, we were saved by Axel and Heike. The first time was in Gabas on day 20 when we ran into them their last night on the trail. The second time was when the trail was similarly poorly marked around Bareges. Axel wrote us a very encouraging and helpful email to keep us going. (In fairness, I should mention Dave Anderson sent me a note “Quit whining and continue hiking. You’ve been talking about going on a hiking adventure ever since I met you.”). This time, there wasn’t any hope of making contact with them since we are another 5 days from internet. Tonight, our savior was a local woman, Suzy.

A couple of women came through the square while we were eating and told us we could camp at the gite even if it was closed. One took me up to show me where while Pam continued eating. It took so long to walk up and back that she got a little worried. When I got back, she sat dejectedly filtering water while I finished my supper. She must have looked like a character from a Charles Dickens novel or maybe the young girl from Les Miserables because Suzy walked into the plaza, took one look at her and asked “Would you like to sleep in a nice bed and take a shower?” Obviously, the odors emanating from both of us are quite strong.

This complete stranger took both of us into her ancestral home in the middle of the village. We were so worn down and thankful to this gracious gesture. She offered us food, drink, showers, a bed, and even laundry if we wanted. It was already well past 9 and we just wanted to get clean and go to sleep. She showed us our room and the layout of the house and let us get ready for bed. This couldn’t have happened to us at a better time. We were at another low point and Suzy kept our trail alive through her kindness.