After my 74th birthday – looking towards the 75th

     Interrupting the tales of GR20 adventures for a moment, I'm inserting a word about my birthday last week. My son, Ela, came down from Washington to hike with me. Because of the heavy smoke in the Rogue Valley and surrounding mountains, we (and Mike) went to Crater Lake National Park.
      First we climbed Mt. Scott – about 4 1/2 miles (up and back), gaining 1,259 feet in altitude. Mt. Scott reaches an altitude of 8,934 feet. The views are stupendous.

With  Ela, on top of Mt. Scott on my 74th birthday

Mike: "Did you see what just happened to Ela?"

After that we hiked down to Cleetwood Cove for a swim in the lake.
      How I love Crater Lake! In most high-altitude lakes, the lake is blue, but to swim in it is to swim through ordinary, clear water. Swimming through Crater Lake is like swimming through color itself. An inch from my fingertips the water was still like rich blue paint. I swam till I was far from shore and the squeals and splashes of people jumping into the lake had dimmed with distance. I felt like I could swim to Wizard Island if it weren't that I would have to swim back, too.
      The next day, defying the smoke, Mike, Ela, and I hiked the Cameron Meadows/Frog Pond loop in the Red Buttes Wilderness (in my "back yard"). As we started the hike, in visible if thin smoke, Mike told me this would probably take two years off my life. I told him to remind me, when I'm dying at the age of 98, that I would have lived for two more years if it hadn't been for that hike I took on my 74th birthday.
      The trail was steeply rigorous. Mike's mosquito repellent saved our tempers. The meadows at the top were colorful with wildflowers – white yarrow, yellow Oregon sunshine, pink vinegar weed, red Indian paintbrush.
      On the way down the mountain, I started thinking about what to do for my 75th birthday, a landmark number. As I walked, I had a light-bulb moment: Between now and July 20, 2019, I thought, I could do 75 things of 75 repetitions each. Things like:
            Write 75 people to ask for suggestions of 75 things to do
            Do a 75-mile hike
            Write 75 poems
            Do 75 good deeds
      Brilliant.
      Crazy.
      The more I thought about it, the more elaborate it got. Make 75 cards to send to 75 friends on my birthday. Bake 75 desserts. (Let's see. That would be a different dessert every five days ….) If I had 75 items on the list, each of which had 75 parts to it, I would have to do 15 parts every day for a year – make one dessert, make one card, write one poem – yeow! What happened to ordinary life?
      Stupid.
      Crazy.
      But possible? And fun! So I wrote the 75 friends and asked for suggestions, hinting that things like "Do an embroidery with 75 stitches" would be more feasible than "Read 75 books." I said I needed things that could be done in hours rather than days. "Be reasonable," I said. "I can't plant 75 trees in a year and do everything else on the list, too, and I'll never do 75 push-ups."
      Suggestions and comments poured in. Most people loved the idea. (Two people advised me to abandon it.) I enthusiastically embraced most of the suggestions but decided not to memorize the first 75 digits of pi. That would be like doing 75 push-ups – though, come to think of it, I wouldn't mind memorizing a 75-line poem. I especially liked the suggestions that benefitted other people – do 75 acts of kindness, make 75 prayers for the earth. I now have 54 items on the list, which you can view on my new blog, thingstodoinmy75thyear.blogspot.com. It'll keep interested readers informed of my progress.
      Do you want to join the fun? Send me your ideas! I still need 21 more.

The First Three Days on the GR20

      After a delicious breakfast at the Hotel U Castellu, in Vizzavona, we started our first day on the GR20. We ascended steadily, hiking now in a beautiful green light filtered through the heavy canopy of beech trees, now on pine-needle-soft soil in pine forests, now on open slopes with views over mountains to the sea. We got to the Refuge U Figonu at quarter till three. Ten minutes later the heavens opened with a downpour of rain. We registered at the refuge, then walked through the rain with our backpacks to find an unoccupied dry tent, where we stowed our gear before returning to the refuge for dinner.

The refuge was crowded with people escaping the rain. The food was awful (mashed-up stew, followed by chunks of chewy beef), but at dinner we made friends with two German men, Patrick and Peter, who had started the GR 20 in Moncalle, and a German woman, Britta, who was hiking the second half of the GR20 alone because her boyfriend had had to drop out. (See last week's post.)

      The next day we climbed still higher, wading (sometimes knee-deep for me) across two beautiful large rivers

and hiking to a broad prairie of low-growing Scotch broom before descending steeply through a recently burned forest, then, in mid-afternoon down a steep, rocky road that was murder on my feet. Just after we arrived at the Refuge di Vertdi,, the rain poured down. We had planned to hike another two miles to Refuge Prati, but, warm and dry in di Verdi, where there was a fire in the fireplace, hiking boots steaming dry on the hearth, a dog asleep in a tunnel under the fireplace, and a cook cooking meat on the fire, we were grateful enough to stay there, even though it would add two miles to the next day's already long hike – ten miles, now, to Refuge d'Usciolu. We ate a delicious dinner of pork and zucchini with the two Dutchmen and Britta.

Britta and me preparing our packs for the day's hike

      The next day we were in the high country at last. We climbed high. We climbed and climbed, but in a cloud that obscured all views. We did some serious, difficult rock climbing, the hand-over-hand kind, pulling ourselves up big-step rocks, squeezing through narrow rock passes. When the trail finally took us to the top of one side of the ridge and over it, we found it taking us up the other side – up, up, up, over, and up up, up, and back over again, in a sort of climbing zig-zag. Just as I thought the trail had at last turned down, it perversely started up again, then more seriously up, climbing a whole darn rocky mountain peak. When we got to the top, we crossed the knife-edge spine of the ridge and started down the other side, but not very far down before we started up again.

      There was no top.

      At the first drops of rain, we stopped to don rain gear. When serious rain didn't materialize, we stopped to take rain gear off. When rain seemed imminent again, we put it back on. Then it did rain. Then it was raining hard. And then, by gum, the rain turned to hail. And up and up and up we went, in the hail and the rain, to the very tip-top of the sharply pointed peak. I thought it was downright sadistic for the trail to go there. In the hail and hard rain.

      But, of course, that's where the trail had to go to get us where we were going. We kept expecting d'Usciolu over every ridge, but no. Nothing. No refuge, no people ahead. Only the cloud, the mountain, an expanse of rock or meadow. The day was waning. Had we passed d'Usciolu? But how could we have? But where was it? Without battery power in the phone, we couldn't check the map. Rain poured down. I began to imagine us having to spend the night huddled together under a protective rock, 6400 feet on the mountain.

      "If we can't see it around this next corner," Mike said, "I think we might have pass it."

      Around the corner – no refuge. I was dismayed, but Mike was staring intently into the valley. "Look," he said. "I see a spot of orange. And tents!" I couldn't see them, but I told him I was glad to believe in his mirage.

      So we came down the mountain into d'Usciolu,

Farther down the mountain, where the refuge is more visible – and other hikers!

arriving in a flash-flood creakbed in which two horses and a mule were tethered, and then crossing a muddy area where people were trying to direct water away from their tents. Tents spilled down the hill higgledy-piggledy. I couldn't find the reception. People were lined up in the rain to buy food and drink at the store, which would open shortly. After wandering around stupidly for a while, we were directed to a doorway, where I told the man there that we had reservations for a tent that night.

      "Where's your proof?" he demanded. I explained that I had made reservations online and hadn't received any proof. He was surly, but when I showed him my passport and he found my name on a list, he assigned us to tent #18.

      It took us a while to find tent #18 as we wandered through the maze of tents in the rain, but when we did, that was it for me. I didn't like the crowded, unfriendly, decidedly unaesthetic atmosphere and the muddy wet site. In spite of the rain cover for my pack, my sleeping was wet on both ends. I crawled into it to dry it with my body heat and refused to move.

      Mike went to the store and returned with nuts, two oranges (!), and trail mix for tomorrow's breakfast and lunch, and a beer for him and an orange juice for me. And chocolate. We ate the half sandwiches we had saved from that wonderful Refuge di Verdi, and that was dinner.  It was still raining outside the tent. Inside, I read My Antonia to Mike until I was too sleepy to continue.

      It had been a day of challenges – difficult hiking, bad weather, long hours. It was one of my favorite days on the trail.

First week on Corsica

      Mike and I planned to start hiking the GR20 ("the most difficult trail in Europe") the day after we arrived on Corsica, but a 40-70% chance of rain every day of the coming week made us think twice. The guidebook said some places were "inadvisable in wet weather." Mike said hiking in the rain day after day was not fun. I said I didn't like mountain thunderstorms. So we agreed to scratch the first week of the hike and pick up the trail at Vizzavona, a town at the halfway point on the GR20.

      Mike said he didn't know whether he were more relieved or more disappointed, but I was more disappointed and started talking immediately about coming back next year to do what we were missing this year.

      Once on the trail, though, we met a lot of people who had bailed on the first half of the trail and started again at Vizzavona, not because of rain (which generally held off till late afternoon) but because of the trail's difficulty and danger. One woman and her male companion had left the trail because he was woefully unprepared and was now licking his wounds on the beaches of Corsica while she hiked the second half. Many people sported bandaged knees and feet. One woman who left after three days said she had seen three helicopter rescues in one day. I stopped talking about coming back next year. I began to be more relieved than disappointed.

      Besides, now, for a week, we would be tourists and day hikers, instead of GR20 hardcore hikers. In the seaside town of Calvi, the mountain village of Lama, and the university town of Corte we could experience Corsican culture.

      At seaside towns we lay on the famous beaches and swam in the beautiful blue Mediterranean. We took a six-hour hike up the gorge of the Tavignanu River to swim in one of the most beautiful swimming holes ever.

 In Lama, we climbed Monti Astu, through gorgeous wildflower displays, to look down from its summit onto tiny-with-distance red-roofed villages, tucked into the valleys between rugged mountains with the sparkling blue sea stretching in the distance from land to sky. 

From Calvi we took a boat excursion to the tiny fishing village of Girolata, accessible only by boat or foot. The boat skirted deep red cliffs that dropped dramatically into the blue sea. After two hours it docked in Girolata, where we had lunch and I went for a swim. 

(Note the dark clouds over the mountains.)

Everywhere, we had a chance to eat typical Corsican food: a strong, distinctive goat cheese called brocciu; charcuterie of all sorts; a frothy fish soup; wild boar stew; and the island beer, Pietra. Breakfast: croissants and rolls. A tiny cup of espresso  after dinner. Chestnut flour was used in desserts, which were almost always custard-like: flan, creme brûlée, chocolate mousse. Bread was served without either butter or olive oil, even though the main agriculture is olive trees.

      It was our good luck to be in Corte on the summer solstice, which is celebrated all over France with a music festival. Early in the evening the main street was blocked to traffic. At the large plaza at the end of the street, electric bands played while people danced and children played chase. The street remained crowded for hours. Musicians played guitars and sang in cafes or set up in quartets and duos at various nooks along the street.  Townspeople flocked to the street, crowding the restaurants and cafes. Mike and I sat in one crowded cafe, next to a table of young men with guitars and beer who were singing traditional Corsican songs in the peculiar wavering style we had heard at an exhibit in the museum earlier in the day.

      Corsican pride was notable, not only in graffiti about "death to the French language," scrawled on the walls of a building in Corte, but in the frequent display of the Corsican flag, which is white with the image of a black head, in profile, with a white bandanna around its forehead. I asked the girl in Corte's Office of Tourism what it meant, but all she knew was that it depicted a moor. Wikipedia informed us that the flag dates from 1755 and was based on a traditional flag used previously, though in that flag the bandanna covered the eyes of the moor. Pasquale di Paoli, a sort of George Washington of Corsica, unblindfolded the moor to symbolize Corsica's liberation from Genoese rule. But why it pictures a moor I don't know. We saw few black people in Corsica. It seemed to have a connection with a saying I saw on a post card: Corsica – souvent conquis, jamais soumis (often conquered, never subdued).

     I enjoyed being in a French-speaking country again. I did passably well with my French. If I was sometimes complimented, I also had comeuppance enough when, for instance, a waiter answered my French with his English. French is the official language, but all road signs use both French and Corsican, and although I'm not sure what language the construction workers at the Matalza Refuge were speaking, it wasn't French or Italian or any other language I could recognize, so, because it sounded vaguely related to those languages, I think maybe it was Corsican.

      I enjoyed my week of being a tourist on Corsica. If we had followed the original plan, we wouldn't have had a chance to experience Corsica's beautiful beaches or swim in the Mediterranean. We wouldn't have heard traditional Corsican music or eaten the good food. The hikes up Monti Astu and the gorge of the River Tavignanu kept us ready for the exertions of the week to come. But by the end of the week, I was eager for the more rugged stuff of the GR20.

Difficulty at the Beginning in Beautiful Aix-en-Provence

On the Cours Mirabeau. I am in green, bottom left.

      If I had thrown the I Ching about my trip to Aix-en-Provence with Mike that would precede our hike on Corsica last month, I would surely have gotten "Difficulty at the Beginning." We had planned to meet at the Marseille airport, he flying in from visiting family in Washington, D.C., and I from visiting friends in Sweden. Because my planes were delayed, I was late arriving (after 8:00 p.m.), and because I had forgotten that WhatsApp was our planned communication device and had been trying to send Mike texts, which he wasn't able to receive, I was relieved to see him waiting for me when I deplaned. Manipulating our luggage – Mike with his roller suitcase and backpack and I with my roller suitcase and a very heavy duffel bag containing my backpack and some extra clothes I had acquired in Sweden, we struggled outside and hailed a taxi. I was pleased that my French was adequate for a pleasant chat with the nice driver as we drove into Aix.

      We were supposed to meet Thierry, host of our Airb&b, at the Hotel de Ville, hours earlier, so I thought we should go directly to the apartment at 5 Rue de la Louviere. But for some reason I didn't understand, the taxi driver couldn't get there. He dumped us in the middle of Aix with all our luggage, telling us to go "a gauche, a droite, a gauche, a droite," and drove away. 

      In tangle-street Aix it's hard to tell which tiny passage is the left turn referred to. In no time at all Mike and I were lost, struggling along with one backpack, two rolling suitcases, and a very heavy duffel bag, trying to find Rue de la Louviere.

      I stopped two young girls and asked them if they knew where Rue de la Louviere was. They didn't, but they consulted a map with me and then their phone. Meanwhile, Mike was asking the drivers of a city cleaning truck. Finally, the girls showed me the way on their phone map, and Mike, with the same instructions from the maintenance men, shouldered his pack and picked up the heavy duffel bag as I pulled our suitcases behind us to walk the few blocks to Rue de la Louviere.

      Relief was short-lived: the building was locked, and there was no box to hold the keys we had been promised. So we shouldered the pack, picked up the very heavy duffel bag, and, pulling the two suitcases behind us, walked around the corner to an open-air bistro, Aix-Press, where a waiter pointed out to us the Hotel de Ville, the large, stately building with a clock tower on the square, where we were to have met Theirry. 

It, too, was locked, and its two massive and beautifully carved doors contained no box that might hold a key.

      The phone was running out of battery power, but I sent Thierry an email through Airb&b. He responded with directions to the box down the street where he had left the key. With that assurance, we took off the pack and set down the suitcases and duffel bag and had a beer at Aix-Press. We plugged in the phone to recharge it. Then I stayed there with our luggage and the phone while Mike took Thierry's directions – street number, box number, and code for the lock – to retrieve the key. The place with security boxes closed at 10:00. Mike was there at 9:55, trying to figure out how it all worked. The timing was fortuitous, as the woman in charge of the security boxes was just coming to close it all up. She helped Mike, and he returned with the keys to the apartment.

      Now we ordered food from the bistro: a delicious bowl of ice cream with syrup and whipped cream for me, and, for Mike, the house salad, with ham and cheese.

      Fortified and encouraged, we shouldered the pack, picked up the very heavy duffel bag, and pulled the two suitcases behind us back around the corner to 5 Rue de la Louviere. The red key opened the door to the building. Thierry had said for me to call him and he would explain the three other keys, but when I tried to call, I only got an incomprehensible message. Mike tried the keys in the first apartment. None fit. We hit the light button and started up a very narrow spiral staircase, carrying the pack, two suitcases, and the very heavy duffel bag, trying not to make noise as we bumped our burdens up the stairs behind us. The light automatically switched off before we got to the top apartment. Mike turned on his phone flashlight. Thump, thunk, thump with the bags up to the fourth floor, where Mike tried one key after another in the three locks until the door opened, and we were in.

      I sent Thierry a message that we had arrived, and we gratefully settled into the apartment and fell into bed exhausted.

      The next morning I got an irritated message from Thierry that we hadn't called. "Not very cool, huh?" he said, very angry. Mike was outraged at his tone, but I wrote back a courteous note explaining the delays and that I had tried, unsuccessfully, to call. Further communication was without rancor, so I must have smoothed things adequately.

      It was difficulty at the beginning, but, on the other hand, there we were in the center of beautiful, ancient Aix-en-Provence. For the next three days we walked around town, ate delicious food, heard good music, saw exhibitions of Cézanne and Picasso, enjoyed the market on the famous Cours Mirabeau, immersed ourselves in the beautiful architecture, cooled ourselves at the famous fountains, and had our fill of delicious croissants and café au lait. And every time we returned to 5 Rue de la Louviere, we found it without difficulty.