GR 11 - Zach's Summary

We finished the GR 11 on the 24th. What a great trip. We spent the last few days on the Mediterranean relaxing. Then we took a roundabout route home, where we took three trains, picked up a truck for our landlords, and drove back to Aime, stopping along the way for some amazing food, wine, and nights in small villages. All in all a great time!

Here is the GR 11 by the numbers:

834 Km long
24.25 total days on trail (counting a quarter day for that first casual 8km without packs and including our two zero-mile days)
187 hours of hiking
48,554 meters climbed and descended
2 nights in refuges, 4 nights in hotels, 1 night in a hostel, and the rest in the tent
8 showers and many cold creek rinses

The trail was extremely beautiful. The water was almost always perfectly clear. The mountains and landscapes were amazing. The buildings and cute little towns were so fun to see. We hiked past countless castles, ancient towns and old ruins. So much history here in Europe.

Being my first real thru-hike, I definitely had a certain set of expectations going into it. All of my backpacking experiences were in US wildernesses (the Sierra Nevadas, the Oregon Cascades, the Wind River in Wyoming, or the Eagle Cap of Oregon), and Europe is quite different. I knew it, but for some reason it still surprised me. Given that I was backpacking; I was expecting a more wilderness-like experience. The same applies when we do our running/hiking loops at refuges; all those refuges are still there, we just weren't sleeping in them. There were also road crossings and towns every day or every two days. Great for keeping a light pack, but allows for a lot more people to be on the trails. There were days when we'd see 2 people all day, then days when we'd see 2,000 people.

We met quite a few great people on the trail. A few stood out:

Coup - Started the same day we did and was going about the same speed. We spent much of the first two weeks on/off hiking with Coup. He is a tripple crowner (PCT, CDT and AT) from Florida. Really fun guy to chat with and we hope to see on teh trails again.
Jamie - Northern Englishman who was doing his first big trip. Hiked on off with him for the middle of the trek. He was a charger doing 40-50km days if he was feeling good.

Bailey - Texan who we met at a refuge. She was taking amazing photographs of the trail and was on a totally different schedule than us. Taking here time to do the trail over 2 months with lots of zero days and meeting locals.

61 yr old Spanaird who was doing the trek solo over 25 days. Carrying a 25L pack and doing a combo of tenting and refuges. He would start at 4am each morning to avoid the heat and the thunderstorms. It was so impressive to see him getting after it. We met him at a campground and had a long conversation in our horrible spanish. He was so excited to see our small packs and that we were trail runners also. Told us his secret is to run, bike and be sure to visit the gym twice a week. Very inspiring!

I'd say that the biggest challenge was not being able to camp just anywhere. We wanted to stay in our tent as much as possible. Technically, camping is illegal in Spain. Apparently, biovacing is allowed. The distinction is that a bivouac is a single night from sunset to sunrise. In all National Parks and Natural Parks all camping and bivouacing is forbidden. With sunset at 10pm we often wanted to stop at 7 or 8p and then we needed to find a descret place to camp. Combine all that with steep technical terrain, and there were quite a few nights when we had to walk for hours to find a place to sleep.

Gear in my backpack was around a 9lb baseweight:

Backpack - Gossamer Gear 36l
Sleeping quilt - Enlightened Equipment 40
Tent - Z-Packs Duplex
Thermorest Neo air pad
Extra clothing (shorts, shirt, socks, rain pants, rain jacket, gloves, hat)
Powerbank for charging
Flpflops

For shoes, we both wore the Norda 001's for the whole trip. They were great and still have life in them after!

Full gear list at: https://lighterpack.com/r/1whzs5

For food prep, we didn't bring a stove or pot for this trip. The plan was to cold soak all of our food in advance of meals. It was both our first time using this method, and I think we were pleasantly surprised by how well it worked. Breakfasts consisted of overnight oats, and dinners were typically couscous or occasionally ramen. Every time we went into towns, we'd buy a sandwich, empanada, or quiche to go. We'd also buy as much fresh fruit as possible to carry and eat while leaving. The combo worked well, and we felt that we were able to maintain a fairly good level of nutrition.

A few of the photos: