Jimney Journal

This is a bit of a different post than we've had previously. It's more of a "detailing my overall experience on the HRP" than a trip report (although it has elements of a trip report too). And I'm doing this to compare it to this year's planning and illustrate where I went wrong last year/where my blind spots were that prevented me from thru-hiking the HRP. Maybe there'll be something useful in it for you too?  I attempted the HRP (Haute Randonnée Pyrénéenne), a long-distance trail in France and Spain, for the first time in 2021. This was my first long trip- I'd really only done day hikes up until this point- and my first backpacking experience of more than two days where I didn't camp in an official campsite. My plan was simple: I'd get to Hendaye some time in July (at the time this still depended on my day job) and then simply... walk. I'd bought my tent (a Zpacks Duplex), my air mattress (NeoAir X-lite, damn you, leaky, uncomfortable thi

Another short but much more proper hiking day than Day 7. STATS START: Bellefontaine END: Les Rousses KM: 18.85 km TIME: 3:39:03  This is the penultimate day for the Échappée Jurassienne trip report! I woke up finally refreshed after about 10 hours of sleep and started to pack. I don't take breakfast in hotels (don't like to eat so early and prefer to hike 1-2 hours first) so I was on the road quickly. After some au revoirs with the owners (very friendly people) I hiked ten minutes on an asphalt road before hitting the forest. The forest was another of those creepy ones. Super quiet, shady, somehow still giving me the feeling in the back of my head that someone's watching me. There were no people except for myself... although I did hear voices at some point. I couldn't however see the people (and I should have. The forest isn't that dense.) so I just hurried along as you do when faced with the possibility of chatty ghosts or spirits. I'd made it about half an h

Day 7 has arrived! This one's a bit different from the rest. There are no stats for this day as it was kind of a rest day. I took the train from Chaux-des-Crotenay to Morez because I couldn't finish the entire GR59 due to time constraints so I had to take a little bit of a shortcut. The bigger waypoints on the GR59 I missed were Foncine (le-Bas and le-Haut) and Chapelle-des-Bois. It's also shorter than usual- which is why you're getting an additional blog post of the Trip tomorrow and another one on future plans for the blog (coming soon!). I spent the first few hours of the day getting to and checking out Morez. I wanted to get to the hotel (Logis Hôtel La Chaumière) early because I was super tired from the poor night before and the long hours of walking every day. I'd kind of hoped to arrive around 12:00 and ask if they could already let me in (didn't happen) so I only walked around Morez a bit before starting on my roughly 15km journey up the hill to Bellefon

STATS START: Doucier END: Chaux-des-Crotenay KM: 19.46 km TIME: 3:56:26 This was a bit of a shorter day (in terms of walking time) but one of my favourites. I think you'll quickly see why. 1.) I started the day with chocolate cake, from the awesome little bakery just across the street of my hotel. It looked like this and it was the absolutely richest and tastiest chocolate cake ever. (Note: Usually I'd eat this monster in two go's. It's very fatty and extremely sweet so it's good to eat half/half or in thirds. But I figured it'd be difficult to carry with me on a hot day since it was all melty cream and chocolate.)  After the cake I started on the Rte des Cascades with the intent to rejoin the GR59 at the Cascades du Hérisson. I could've joined it a bit earlier if I took the other road (D39) but on the map the Rte des Cascades looked more interesting as it passes two lakes. (Note: Unfortunately I didn't actually get to see much of the first lake as it wa