Day 18: St. Dalmas to Utelle

After a sleepless night (curse you festival!) we found that our clothes hadn’t really dried either. It wasn’t just the rain; they were engrained with three weeks’ worth of sweat. Or, as we so eloquently put it: “saturated with the essence of eeeeergh…” We even developed a new punctuation mark for this, the “accent yuch!” which looks like a tilde ~ but tilted 90 degrees so it’s vertical. It needs to be put over ever “e” in the word “eeeeergh” and is used to indicate stinkiness and disgust in general.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018GR5, Grande randonnée, Hiking, Long-distance, St. Dalmas, Utelle, FranceComment

Day 17: Refuge de Longon to St. Dalmas

The first of three long days. It started with a very long, very gradual descent. First around the alpages of Refuge the Longon, taking care not to let the dogs follow us. A sign at the refuge informed us that if we took the dogs, we might as well take the cows, too, but I hate cows so the dogs had to stay put. We were definitely out of the high mountains though. Most of the day we walked through the forest or along broad tracks between villages. The first of these villages was Roure, which clings to the hillside overlooking the Vallée de Tinée.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018GR5, Grande randonnée, Refuge de Longon, St. Dalmas, France, Mercantour, Alps, Long-distance, Hiking, GR52AComment

Day 16: Roya to Refuge de Longon

We left Roya early to escape the hordes of flies. We were definitely fitter at this point; the 1000 m climb felt a lot shorter and easier than it did at the start. We quickly left the forest behind and climbed further up into the valley beneath some dramatic cliffs with vultures hovering overhead.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018GR5, Grande randonnée, Roya, Refuge, Refuge de Longon, Mercantour, France, Long-distance, HikingComment

Day 15: St. Etienne de Tinée to Roya

Well, that was our last night camping! Of course there was a thunderstorm during the night so we had to wait for the tent to dry. Once it was completely 100% dry, we packed it up together with the sleeping bag, mats and other camping gear and dropped it off at the post office. We’d had a look at the map and realised there would be no further campsites.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018St. Etienne de Tinée, Roya, France, Mercantour, GR5, Grande randonnée, Long-distance, Hiking, FliesComment

Day 14: Bousieyas to St. Etienne de Tinée

The GR5 guidebook suggests hiking from Bousieyas to Auron in one day, and on towards Refuge de Longon the next day. However, this would mean two fairly long stages (26 and 31 km). We decided to split it in three (the alternative suggested by the guidebook) and end the first day in St. Étienne de Tinée. This meant a very easy day for us, so we started out on sandals again.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018France, Bousieyas, St. Etienne de Tinée, Mercantour, GR5, Grande randonnée, Long-distance, Hiking, AlpsComment

Day 13: Larche to Bousieyas

I woke up on the cold hard ground because all the air had gone out of my sleeping pad. It was the middle of the night but Jasper must’ve noticed me being awake because he asked what was going on.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018France, Mercantour, Larche, Bousieyas, Long-distance, Hiking, GR5, Grande randonnée Comment

Day 12: Maljasset to Larche

A long day with a boring start. The first 11 km(!) are along the asphalt road. They have actually made GR5 paths a short distance from the road near the river, but we kept losing this path so eventually we gave up and just followed the road instead. It’s not a busy road and the views are good. Near the end of the roadwalking the river runs through a dramatic gorge crossed by a stone bridge, Le Pont Châtelet. After crossing the bridge we followed the GR5 which luckily left the road, and began our climb up through the forest to reach Fouillouse.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018Maljasset, Larche, GR5, Grande randonnée, Long-distance, Hiking, Alps, FranceComment

Day 11: Ceillac to Maljasset

Apparently we are very noisy campers (or maybe it’s the fact that we have “Stayin’ alive” as our alarm clock). We packed up our gear early in the morning and Jasper went off to the bakery to buy bread. When he came back our unfriendly neighbour stuck his head out of the tent, glared at us and muttered ominously in French to person or persons unknown inside the tent, of which we just about caught the angry words “sept heures trente”. He then asked us if we were going to stay long. The whole exchange was just slightly too aggressive to be called passive aggressive. Besides, in what country is seven-thirty considered early for hikers? This was a hikers’ campsite, after all.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018Comment

High in the clouds: Adlerweg

The Adlerweg (Eagle's way) is a 300 km long hike traversing the length of Tyrol in Austria. It is a relatively new long-distance hike starting in Sankt Johann in Tyrol, and finishing at the Arlberg at the western border between Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Marte and I walked the length of the trail in the summer of 2017.

Adlerweg, First PageJasper LandmanJanuary 6, 2018Adlerweg, Austria, Alps, Long-distance, Hiking, Hut, Tyrol, IntroductionComment

Day 10: Brunissard to Ceillac

Breakfast was pains aux raisins in the morning sun! We said goodbye to our friendly neighbours and headed off on another longish GR5 day. There was a bit of road-walking at first, but most of the first stretch to Château-Queyras was along beautiful forest paths. We were both pleasantly surprised by the Queyras. Despite the wild mountains and rock formations the landscape is very green and pretty. Kind of like a Midsomer Murders episode but with mountains instead of murder. Lac de Roue was a good example of this.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018GR5, Brunissard, Ceillac, France, Queyras, Long-distance, Hiking, Grande randonnéeComment

Day 9: Briançon to Brunissard

“Rest days are for the weak,” we said to ourselves as we struggled to walk down the stairs of our hotel. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. Yes, we were sore. Yes, our feet still hurt. But we were going to continue walking because that’s what we set out to do.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018Briançon, Brunissard, GR5, Grande randonnée, Hiking, Long-distance, FranceComment

Day 8: Névache to Briançon via the GR5C

It was so cold. We spent most of the night shivering under our single sleeping bag blanket (hurray for emergency blankets!). When we checked the inside of the tent in the morning we first thought it was completely dry. A second later we realised there was plenty of condensation but it had frozen.

GR5Marte van der LindenJanuary 6, 2018Briançon, Hiking, Long-distance, France, GR5, GR5C, Névache Comment

Traveling the world

Hike with us