Showdown: 2021 vs 2022 Haute Randonnée Pyrénéenne (Part 1)

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 thing), and a lightweight quilt from Enlightened Equipment. I'd read a lot about ultralighting it on reddit, had my lighterpack torn apart, and followed a ton of advice to get to the lightest weight possible for my pack. Most of it was success. My backpack was around 8-10kg depending on how much food/water was in it. I believe my base weight was around 4kg (roughly 8lbs).

So, I was all set to go, right? I definitely was chomping at the bit!

I finally headed out on the 27th of July after a long and tedious conference. I arrived in Hendaye super excited. I stayed the night in a hotel in town and started the journey the next morning.

It was fun.

Super fun.

I loved hiking up the trail-strewn slopes of the hills, the green meadows (strewn generously with horse and goat droppings), the winding paths through the Baseque country.

The first night was fine. The tent was on a slope but I had my partner with me and it wasn't too much trouble. I slept. My partner didn't (much). Oh well.

The next day was fun too. I passed someone with the same tent as us. The going was easier (not so much up). I got bitten by a horsefly the size of my thumb in the half-second I dared to rest on trail. More horses. more goats. Some sheep. Some herding/guard dogs.

The second night we found a hotel in Elizondo and washed our clothes (I don't have to tell you that this was pointless half an hour into the next day...).

The third night was again good- even though we camped in the trees and some weird owls cackled super creepily in the middle of night and a shepherd led his goats past our tent just after it went dark. (I suppose both are somewhat expected.)

But the next day my partner started to have knee issues. And unfortunately had to leave the trail.

But I got this! No problem. I'm an independent woman and I can do this. It's not my first solo hike.

The rest of day four (after my partner left the trail) was still fun. But then it got misty and wet. And then it started to rain.

I slept that night in the tent alone. I hadn't built it properly due to the hard ground not taking well to my ultralight (stupidlight) stakes so water came trickling in and I woke up in a pool in the middle of the night. But since it was storming and I really didn't want to bother I just... closed my eyes and fell back asleep in the pool. It was fine. I woke up warm enough (the NeoAir X-lite, after all, acts a little bit like an inflatable pool mattress). I got into my wet clothes (as you do when they don't dry over night) and left the "campsite".

 This was another fun day. But long. About 38km with ~2000m ascent. That's a lot. I was super smashed by the time I got to the refuge (I'd actually booked a bed there because... well. Being wet in a tent sucks) and felt like my feet were never gonna move again.

In the morning, I felt better, however, still not good enough to walk another 20-30km. I was bummed out. I loved hiking the area and this forced rest day was putting a downer on my journey. But no matter. I could go into town and continue tomorrow. So I went into town (courtesy of partner renting a car to pick me up) and continued the next day.

I got to Lescun the day after. Then to Candanchu the next day. (And if you have any idea how long the distances between all those are then you know what happened next...)

I got all the way to refuge Pombie (which is absolutely amazing!) and then just... absolutely couldn't walk any more. I'd loved the gruelling ascent to Pombie. I loved the area. This is the first section in the high Pyrenees that's absolutely gorgeous. It's all karst and exposed rock and... just the thing I love.

But I couldn't walk any more. I'd walked so long (and I tend to overdo things and not really take a lot of breaks even if I'm hiking for 8-10 hours) and ascended so much and my backpack was so excruciatingly heavy... I just couldn't. Didn't want to. My body absolutely refused. So I went down from Pombie in the right direction but then rather than ascending to the next refuge simply went to town. It took me some 4+ hours because I didn't want to hitchhike. The walk on the road was terrible. And I had no way of getting back to where I'd left off.

I was angry with myself. I was annoyed with my body for failing me even as my mind was so relieved that just for a day or two I didn't have to walk any more. I didn't want to hike (upwards) and I hated my backpack. I hated everything about that day even though, as I said above, the area was so gorgeous. My brain didn't want to do it. I didn't want to continue and I didn't know if I'd want to continue another day. (That last thought didn't last very long. As soon as I'd made the decision to go to town and then continue the next day/day after I was already planning how and where to get back on trail.)

So I went to town... and because I'd already seen Pau and was really tired of mountain villages I decided to take the train to Biarritz. Yeah. That's about a 4 hour train journey. I stayed there for a day and then went back to Pau to get back on the trail. Ugh. Not my proudest moment.

I got back on trail in L'hospitalet-pres-L'Andorre. That's... skipping a fair chunk of the HRP and both GRs. About 15 days? But I was afraid I'd run out of time (had to be back by September 1) and I had no way of getting back to where I'd left off anyway. Plus: I was still a bit traumatized from my exhausted (read: stupid) decisions after Pombie.

So back to the trail and I ascended to Lac des Bouillouses. And promptly wanted to get back to a real town after camping by the lake (which was superb though!). So down to Mont Louis and from there to Perpignan. Another few days wasted before I got back on trail in Arles.

The rest of the journey went fine. I was able to stay on trail and "complete" it with the gaps mentioned above. In total, I did about half of the 800km trail, so around 400km. I wasn't happy about how it went. I'd intended to do more, I'd wanted to hike the entire thing, and I'd failed.

The above anecdote doesn't really make entirely clear why I'd failed/why the HRP was such a problem for me. Here are a few more factors that made it impossible for me to stay on trail:

• The first is that I continuously went back and forth from towns to the trail. And not just small towns close-by. I went to Biarritz (lol) once, a few times to Pau, and once again to Toulouse.
• There's a central section of the HRP where you have to carry 9 days worth of food because there are few refuges (says the guide). I hadn't prepared for that (I hadn't really prepared anything when it comes down to it) and didn't want to get stuck on a mountaintop without supplies. So that was out the moment I read about it in the guide (on trail).
• I was going was too many kms. The first few days I did around 30km/day and then upped it to ~40km when my partner left. I was ascending 1500+ most days and it just wasn't sustainable for me.
• I hadn't read the guide/didn't know what to look for. I thought having a start and end point would be okay. If I had at least thought a little bit more about it beforehand then I would have realized all the above things and could have planned for them.
• My biggest worry before starting was how I'd wash my hair (heh). This was another factor why I went back to town again and again. I have some difficulty falling asleep when dirty but I didn't want to carry all the stuff necessary to wash in the wilderness. I even threw away my soap in the first hotel 'cos it was WEIGHT that I didn't need. (The bottle was also leaking...)
• I had absolutely no plan other than "hike". I love hiking. I'm not a big planner. This works all right if you're doing 1-3 day trips. It doesn't work for 30-40.
• I'd planned no rest days. Rest is for the weak! Not!
• I'd thought sleeping in a tent would be fun. Until I actually had to do it on my own in the forest. I couldn't sleep that night because of all the noises and I only had cheap earplugs that muted some noises but not all. Besides... I was more scared of NOT hearing the murderer coming than blocking out sounds so I could fall asleep. Sigh. Not my proudest moment.

These are most of the factors that led to the failures on the HRP last year. In the next post (online next Sunday! I'll already be on trail by then.) you'll learn what I'm doing differently this time! 

PS: I'll be posting pictures on Instagram throughout. Follow me! @jimneyhikes

-Jimney