Preparing for the GR20

            Today I’m going to hike the Baldy Mountain trail with Mike. Both of us will be carrying 20-pound backpacks. Yesterday I started on my usual walk from my house, up the mountain and back down for about an hour, with a 20-pound pack, then stretched the hour’s walk into three hours and forty minutes by making a loop to the top of the ridge, down to the paved road, and back up to the trail through the woods to my house. When I got to that trail, instead of turning onto it and heading home, I went back up the mountain to the top of the ridge before finally heading home – just for the sake of doing it.

            The previous day, I hiked, with Mike, up Table Rock Mountain, an hour and a quarter, with a pack. The day before that, I hiked up Bolt Mountain – four hours, with a pack. The day before that I hiked, with Mike, the Eliot Ridge trail, seven hours, twelve miles, some exceedingly steep. With packs.

            All this is necessary because Mike and I are going to be hiking GR 20, on Corsica, touted as the most difficult trail in Europe. Seven hours on the Eliot Ridge Trail is still three hours short of the longest day on the GR 20, which is 125 miles with a total elevation gain of 41,000 feet and is done in fifteen days. If I’m going to do it, I had better be ready.

            Here’s some of what the guide book says about the GR 20.

“The GR 20 is a tough, steep, and rocky trail that is generally followed in a blazing sun.”

 “The GR 20 is a slow and often difficult trek, but one where the scenery is so magnificent that you wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else.”

“The first day on the GR 20 is a shock to the system. …The ascent is unrelenting, uphill all the way, climbing higher than anywhere in Britain, then climbing further, scrambling across a rocky hillside.”

 “The mountain ridges are very exposed in severe weather conditions, and sudden lightning strikes have claimed trekkers’ lives.”

“Every year there is at least one casualty along the course of the GR20 and a number of accidents.”

 “Only minutes after leaving the Refuge de Carozzu, there is a steep and rugged descent into a gorge … A steep and rocky ascent, sometimes holding snow well into the summer, leads to a high rocky gap. … The descent is very steep and rugged, taking longer to complete than some might imagine."

         On the third day, It takes five and a half hours to go three and a quarter miles. The next day it takes eight hours to go the same distance.

            Reading all that and more, I got worried. I needed to be ready! Late spring snows kept me from hiking until mid-April, but I was skiing, which I figured was pretty good keep-in-shape exercise. As soon as the snow was too thin for skiing, Mike and I started looking for places to hike. The Illinois River Trail was an easy beginning of the training regimen because it isn’t steep and we weren’t carrying packs. The next week we hiked the Charlie Buck Trail, very steep. (Mike carried a pack. I didn’t.) When I got home, I was hobbling. My feet hurt badly. They were throbbing. It was not a good sign.

            The problem is hallux rigidus (rigid big toe), an arthritic condition. A soak in Epsom salts helped, but I can’t take Epsom salts on the GR 20. Would I really be able to put my boots on day after day for yet another strenuous day of hiking, for fifteen days? If I were going to do it, I would have to up the ante for training.

            Two days later I climbed Charlie Buck again, by myself and with a pack. Three days later I climbed Stein Butte (five hours, some steep) by myself, with a pack, and the next day I did the same thing again. The next day I hiked a couple of miles on the East ART (East Applegate Ridge Trail) with some school children; then Mike and I hiked the Little Grayback Trail (with packs). The next day I hiked Stein Butte again (with a pack).

            My poor feet. The Stein Butte trail is a killer. My hiking boots are worn out. Mike went with me to Mt. Shasta so I could try on boots at a recommended shoe store. When I found some that I thought would do, I left them at the store to be stretched in the toe while Mike and I climbed Castle Crags (with packs), a very steep climb over a rocky trail, very beautiful and good training for the GR 20 except that it only took four hours, a short day on the GR 20.

            My podiatrist has suggested a foot sleeve for support on each foot. She recommended taking Advil or Aleve (“Experiment to see which works best,” she said) to counter the pain from the pounding my feet take on the downhill. She approved the foot cream I had bought and suggested that whenever possible I should soak my feet in cold water after or during a day’s hike. Armed with new boots and a supply of medical aids and well trained by day after day of strenuous hikes in the Siskiyous, I am full of determination to hike the GR 20and enjoy it to boot. And I have one last resource. Instead of thinking, as I pick my way down a steep rocky trail, “Ow! My feet hurt so bad!” I’ll be thinking, “Well, it’s not so bad. They’ve hurt worse.” I’ll be thinking about that glass of wine at the refuge at the end of the day’s hike and about the swimming hole promised by the guidebook. I’ll be thinking about Mike’s banal but wise advice: “Just put one foot in front of the other.” I’ll be thinking how wonderful it is to be on Corsica, in all that splendid landscape, doing what I love.