Day 16 on the GR5: hungry and agape!

It has been five weeks since I finished the sometimes dangerous and always stunning 700-kilometre long GR5, including nearly forty thousand meters of ascent. Unfortunately, between all the hiking and the being tired afterward and the not having access to the supposed-worldwide web, I was not able to keep up with writing and posting updates for The Trek in real time. This epic trail through the French Alps took me 34 days, including two days of rest. Then, immediately after the GR5, I travelled back up to nearly where I started the GR5 to hike the 170-kilometre Tour du Mont Blanc. That took me eight days. Then, I spent a week in Bernex, France, and did something even more challenging than the GR5 and TMB combined: I relaxed. Now, I’m back home in Toronto, altitude 76 meters, and am back to work and to regular life. However, already I am scheming and dreaming of my next adventure. But, first, let’s pick up where we left off with my GR5 adventure, shall we?

Day 16 – July 18th – 31 KMS – 12 HRS – 299 KMS TOTAL

Start: 7:05 AM, Refuge du Plan du Lac, End: 7:11 PM, Peyra Levrousa

Ascent: 1305 m (17 215 m total), Descent: 1520 m (15 335 m total) (camping behind the restaurant)

Packed up early and ready to go, I was forced to wait for my picnic lunch from the refuge, which would be ready at seven, as I was 100% out of food. After picking up the meagre bag of food, I peaked inside and found a sandwich, a tomato, an apple, two cheese slices and a cookie. Is this enough fuel for the 31-kilometre day ahead of me? I wondered. It was going to have to be. Breakfast consisted of only instant coffee and skim milk powder shaken with 400 millilitres of water. Despite such a wildly insufficient amount of calories, I packed the untouched food bag into my backpack, and was excited and ready for my big day on the GR5. The morning began with a cloudless sky and the serenade of les marmottes as the sun rose steadily over the crest of the jagged grey mountain range. The air was cool and crisp, but only twenty minutes into my hike, I was ready to remove my Merino wool longjohns and sweater. The valley, full of bumps and mounds and little hills, was carpeted with grass as short and uniformly green as astroturf. The trail here followed a narrow current, which created a soothing soundtrack of white noise that drowned out the crunchy clomping of my hiking boots. Passing a farm, I stopped to say hello to one of the curly-horned goats. Then I climbed up the mountain side and passed the remnants of yet another stone building, a sight that was omnipresent along the entire trail. Up, up and more up, just like every day on the GR5…and I loved it. All that ascent, and with more than thirty pounds on my back. This trail was making me supremely strong and fabulously fit. The GR5: the most beautiful boot camp in the entire world! Ahead of me sat a relatively-flattened peak, smothered in snow and mirrored perfectly by an elongated kidney-shaped lake at its feet, sitting still as stone. Boulders lay scattered over the grassy valley below, like sprinkles on a cupcake. With such a long day ahead of me, I knew I couldn’t dawdle. However, the 360-degree views were staggering, merciless, and I surrendered to a slow saunter. Narrow plank bridges crossed glacial torrents. At ten in the morning, it was time for a quick break and snack. The chocolate chunk cookie was scrumptious! Sizeable swaths of snow still covered the path, but did not cause any extra risk or danger like they had at earlier points on the trail. These patches were not on steep slopes nor beside drastic drop-offs and had well-worn paths across them. Then, after passing another major brook, there was a formidable section of me-sized jagged boulders that needed to be scrambled across. Here, the path was only visible from the stone cairns forming a loose trail through the maze of haphazard giant rocks. I loved it. Scrambling is my favourite and I relished every second of this section. With not another soul around, the entire massive valley and huge circumference of quartzite and limestone peaks was all for me! Alpenrose! My faithful flower friend reappeared and brightened up the place with poofs of pink amid the endless green and grey. By noon, the trail was following another of its balcony paths around the mountain, giving vertigo-worthy views of the valley below to my left, front-row seats of steep, sky-scraping mountainsides to my right, and with always more mountains in sight ahead. These contour paths are also my favourite. Just after noon, I arrived to Refuge de l’Arpont, at an altitude of 2309 meters. There, I stopped in for a small beer and an omelette; I pocketed the three small slices of bread it was served with. Then, it was back to hiking; I was only halfway done for the day. More boulders, more cascades, and continued never-ending 360-degree views… Do every single one of these thousands of mountains have names? I wondered. A herd of lambs blocked my path, and I said to them, politely in French, Excusez-moi! Excusez-moi! They cried baaaa and complained, but complied. Mythical-looking waterfalls poured over a mountain top, magnificent and surreal like a Ferdinand Hodler painting. Naturally-occuring stone steps contoured a mountain beside yet another dramatic drop-off. I reached another stone building, but this one looked fairly intact. Upon investigation, I found the door open. Inside, there was a small wooden table, a couple of chairs, an old stove, a cabinet with a few basic supplies, two bare mattresses on rusty metal frames, a couple of frying pans, and a heck of a lot of dust. Another narrow plank bridge helped me across another torrent. More cliffside stone steps, more views… Later, to my friend, Véronique, who is a professional psyhologist, I spoke about this non-stop beauty and how it was often quite overwhelming, leaving me perpetually agape. She told me there was a name for what I was experiencing: Stendhal syndrome. After researching this condition, I would have to agree with her diagnosis. The depth, breadth, scope and humbling beauty of the French Alps and its valleys is incredibly hard to put into words…but I’m trying! As well, these sights have me yearning to learn more about glaciers and how our Earth was formed, that is certain. Far, far below, I saw the veins of roads pulsing through tiny villages. It was so strange to think that regular, civilized life was so close when I felt as though I was in a far-removed world up there. The path stretched out far before me, curving across mountain side after mountain side. Grassy slopes were followed by steep sides of scree. One wrong step and it would be a very bumpy and long fall down! More sheep! Hello, friends! Baby sheep are cute but adult sheep can be pretty scary-looking if they stare at you straight on, which one did do. On and on, I walked, I climbed, I hiked. It was almost four in the afternoon when I heard the sharp, short shrill of another marmotte. I had become very adept at spotting the cute little creatures whenever I heard them blasting out their short, whistle chirps throughout the valleys. After spotting the cute little guy, I decided to take a break and eat the sandwich from my picnic lunch. Inside the soft-white bun (no crisp and crackling baguette!) were two woefully-thin slices of meat and three tiny cornichons. It was disappointing, but I ate it. Finally, I arrived to Peyra Levrousa, a little restaurant that allows hikers and cyclists to pitch their tent behind the restaurant for only a few Euros. The couple running the place were smiley and nurturing. They had just begun serving dinner, but I opted for an omelette, served with salad, instead. And a small beer. For a couple of Euros, you can purchase a jeton that buys you thirty litres of hot water for a shower, which was glorious. I pitched my tent facing the opposing mountain range and, from inside my beloved little shelter, with the vestibule wide open as always, I watched the mountains turn from grey to orange, then back to a grey that slowly became darker and darker with the passing minutes. What a day. How could I possibly absorb all the beauty that I saw, hiked through, was a part of, was smack in the heart of, on this day? Thankfully, I knew I would at least have the videos that I was making of this trek for my YouTube channel to watch later (@womaninthewoods13). In the middle of the night, I peaked out of my tent to see one last jaw-dropping spectacle for the day…a billion stars alight in the ink black sky…