Friday, September 23, 2011

GR 20

 I really dig it when I can read trip reports of other hikers. Of course, what immediately interests me are trip reports from Southern California and/or the Adirondacks but I also get a kick out of trip reports from all over the globe. Heck, I totally dug one of my hiking buddy's recent trip reports from Colorado (makes me want to get on a plane RIGHT NOW). 

I have been reading a lot of mountaineering books about Everest and K2 and those books, the good ones, really put you into another country and what it takes to climb a mountain.

So given my global trekking via my eyeballs and mouseclicks, I proudly present to you guys another great trip report. This one comes from Rick McCharles who is the editor of Besthike.com.

This Summer Rick hiked the GR 20, which I have never heard of but looks like a BEAST of a hiking trail. Not so much mountaineering or rock climbing (which is fine by me for the moment) but hard, hard scrambles and crazy elevation gains (the first day went from 902 feet to 5085 feet over 7.5 miles).

The GR 20 seems like the Island of Corsica's answer to the Trans Catalina Trail here in SoCal except replace rambunctious foxes with rocks and more rocks. I have seen some other trip reports from Eastern Europe and other parts of the world with tough hikes and this one looks right up there.

I have great appreciation for the skill and danger involved in mountaineering and part of me really relishes the physical challenge of doing something similar on a "hike".

If you are looking for an armchair escape this weekend, I highly recommend checking out the first three days of his hike (more are sure to come).

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

1 comments:

  1. Thanks for the shout out. I will definitely read about the GR20.

    However, if you want some great gain, you don't have to go to Eastern Europe. Try the Villager Peak hike down in San Diego for 5,000' of gain in 5 miles.

    http://bit.ly/VillagerRabbitPeaks

    Good times...

    ReplyDelete

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