How do you describe a 30 day, 850km hiking adventure? For me, describing the experience can be more of a challenge than the trip itself.
Our great escape was originally planned to start in September. We were to enjoy 800km of solitude traversing the Pyrenees’s main ridge from west to east. But just like for so many of us, this year wasn’t a year that was going to go according to plan.
Jeff and I found ourselves spending the next 5 days calculating a new route, rebooking trains and figuring out our new plan. Jef would accompany me from Lake Geneva to Queyres. This would be the first leg of the trip where we followed the well-established GR5 route through the French Alps. After 17 days of hiking, the second leg would see me go it alone, pushing into the Italian Alps via the Grande Traversatti delle Apli, a rough and desolate path leading me to the Mediterranean.
So, how do I describe it in the end? I received many messages of congratulations, linking the experience to a physical achievement to be proud of and physical it certainly was! The mountain doesn’t let you pass without testing you. There were plenty of moments where I would ask “what the fuck am I doing”. However, for all those moments, I would catch myself overwhelmed by blissful ones that helped me forget how I got there.
In the end, escaping the system by getting off the grid made me realise that this was not a physical adventure at all, but a spiritual journey. I came to tick a lifelong goal off the list but mother nature had other ideas.
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