GR 11- the first few days

I’m very happy to be traveling by foot again, it’s been a long time since I’ve thru hiked. We are thru hiking the GR11, roughly 800km across northern Spain.

The first few days have been foggy, humid and rainy as we traveled through the Basque region. This area is characterized by lush forests and rolling farmlands. The trail is well marked by white and red blazes, making navigation very straight forward so far.

Typical Basque countryside 

A trail marker in the Basque region 

Typical fog in Basque region

We’ve come across a village every day or two so we’ve been carrying two or three days worth of food which makes for even lighter packs which is nice. Siesta here is very much observed (and very long, usually 1pm-5pm), so often times we come to towns and find that stores/restaurants are closed. We’re cold soaking meals for the first time and it’s working surprisingly well.

We’ve been hiking with fellow American thru hiker Coup, who we met on day one. He’s got lightweight gear and we’re moving at a similar pace. It’s been really fun to have someone to hike with and talk to. Overall we’ve been surprised by how many other thru hikers we have met, with folks going both directions.

We had our first glimpse of the Pyrenees towards the end of day three and by the end of day four we were camped up high in the mountains. We had an insanely intense thunder and lightning storm that lasted for most of the night.

Getting into the Pyrenees

We took a shorter “nero” day yesterday to shower, do laundry, resupply and spent the first night in a town. We’ve been tenting so far which has been great. Tomorrow we head high up into the Pyrenees and will remain in the mountains for quite a while now.

Happy Trails,

Jetpack