[HN Gopher] Hexatrek: The long distance thru hike in France
___________________________________________________________________
Hexatrek: The long distance thru hike in France
Author : carabiner
Score : 332 points
Date : 2023-04-01 04:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.hexatrek.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.hexatrek.com)
| aj7 wrote:
| What do the elevations mean?
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| I believe they are referring to the cumulative elevation gain
| [0], which is essentially the sum of all increases in altitude
| during the route, without subtracting loss of altitude by
| descent. While in theory this implies potentially different
| values depending on which direction the route is taken, overall
| the difference between both values is just the difference in
| sea level between each end of the route, which may be
| negligible.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_elevation_gain
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| jbgreer wrote:
| For alternate long distance French routes, check out Chemin St
| Jacques.
|
| I note this trail passes through St Jean Pied de Port, and thus
| could be used as a natural connector to walk across France and
| Spain.
| sakopov wrote:
| I walked from St Jean Pied de Port, France to Finisterre, Spain
| twice. It was a great experience and highly recommended.
| kiko123 wrote:
| Me too! Had a little less time than I'd have liked, so I
| started in Burgos instead of St Jean Pied de Port.
| Nonetheless, it was an amazing experience. Finisterre might
| have been one of the prettiest places I've ever been to.
| justinator wrote:
| It's very... civilized. I was riding my bike on part of it
| without knowing I was. It's not what I would call a backpacking
| experience to compare with the AT, CDT, etc. I'm sure this
| isn't either, as there's no real wilderness in France, but it
| sure is more appealing to me than El Camino.
| masklinn wrote:
| Yeah the Ways of Saint James is a pilgrimage route (or a
| catchment thereof until you reach the Camino frances), so
| it's supposed to be accessible to most everyone, and would
| have way stations all along as pilgrims of the early middle
| ages could hardly be assumed to carry months worth of
| necessities.
| sulam wrote:
| No one carries months of supplies fwiw. Two weeks of food
| is the absolute max on the PCT and the AT is much less. 2-3
| liters of water is the most you need even for the Mojave
| unless you are very late (or early if you're SB). I imagine
| this French linkup is to the AT what the AT is to the CDT.
| harriet1 wrote:
| [dead]
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Not really an alternate. I did the Camino de Santiago from
| vezelay and it was along roadways for the most part. Some
| beautiful, out of the way roadways, but still roadways. This
| trail network seems much more in the wilderness, considering
| they recommend bivouacing along it.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| For those who don't know, the Chemin Saint Jacques (or Camino
| de Santiago, or Way of Saint James) is a pilgrimage route (or
| rather a network of pilgrimage routes) which goes all the way
| to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. Spanish
| "Santiago" = French "Saint Jacques" = English "Saint James the
| Great".
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| To add to that cultural tidbit, in France the pilgrimage is
| most commonly known as Saint Jacques de Compostelle or
| chemins de Compostelle.
| throw0101c wrote:
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago
|
| Two popular starting routes are the towns of Irun for _Camino
| del Norte_ and St. Jean Pied du Port for _Camino Frances_ ,
| which the Hexatrek pass by.
|
| * https://caminoways.com/camino-del-norte
|
| * https://caminoways.com/camino-frances
|
| If anyone is curious, there are vloggers on YouTube
| documenting their travels for these.
| thuridas wrote:
| The good part of this path is the logistics. A lot of
| people travel though it so there are a lot of cheap lodges,
| good signaling and places to buy food or have a meal
| generationP wrote:
| The pictures are beautiful, but what about the logistics?
| Ideally, day stages with lodging and/or public transport at the
| ends, such as German trails often have. Wild camping is not
| allowed in France, so a mere gpx trail through the middle of
| nowhere isn't that useful all by itself.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _Wild camping is not allowed in France_
|
| Maybe they drastically increased monitoring but my memories of
| my teenage years are that you could do whatever you wanted, and
| that was in relatively urbanised areas... so wild camping in
| the middle of nowhere? No-one will even know.
| kzrdude wrote:
| That's great but we can predict that more attention, more
| foot traffic and more people will bring the need for more
| rules around this.
| orwin wrote:
| Bivouac is allowed. So as long as you don't make fire and are
| up and packed before 9, you're good.
| boudin wrote:
| There's an article about it on the website:
| https://en.hexatrek.com/hiking-trail/bivouac-rules-in-france
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Wow even the rules for bivouac seem bizarre and arbitrary.
| Only one night in the same place allowed... what if you set
| out to climb some peaks in the Alps and need to wait a few
| days for the right weather window, do you have to move your
| tent every day (and tear it down after sunrise)? Very odd
| and arbitrary. It almost seems like it would incentivize
| dangerous fast and loose/sloppy outdoor behavior.
|
| For comparison in the US dispersed camping usually just has
| very general rules like can't stay in an area more than
| 30-60 days, have to leave no trace, respect fire bans, and
| deal with other local restrictions like on hunting,
| foraging, fire wood collecting, etc.
| wongarsu wrote:
| France has about four times the population density of the
| US, so it's somewhat easier to step on each other's toes.
| The idea behind the rules is simple: pick a spot where
| you don't bother anyone (including protected wildlife)
| and set up a tarp, not a camp. The latter is somewhat
| indirectly enforced by forcing you to move
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > For comparison in the US dispersed camping
|
| Good luck with dispersed camping in the US east of the
| Mississippi (or for that matter, in Texas). It is totally
| reliant on federal public land, which essentially exists
| only in the western states. Out east [0], or in Texas,
| you will find yourself in a situation much more similar
| to the one in France (or England, or Germany, or ...)
|
| [0] and effectively, the east/west boundary is not even
| the Mississippi, but something like the 101st meridian.
| Dispersed camping in eastern Kansas is next-to-
| impossible.
| nanidin wrote:
| Mark Twain National Forest is in Missouri and allows
| dispersed camping.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I tried not to say "impossible". Yes, there are some
| small bits of national forest in the east (I've stayed in
| some recently in VA, for example), but they tend to be
| small and very much the exception.
| ghaff wrote:
| >It is totally reliant on federal public land, which
| essentially exists only in the western states.
|
| You do have federal and state lands in the eastern US
| but, of course, nothing like the vast tracts out west. In
| any case, with the notable exception of the Appalachian
| Trail, there are fewer options for long-distance
| backpacking in the east though there are some hut systems
| and, subject to various rules, you can find places to
| camp in national forests in particular.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| State land regulations tend to differ from the federal
| ones. They even vary forest-to-forest. I know that some
| state forests in PA allow dispersed camping, some do not.
| Makes it all very confusing.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| And in Texas don't be surprised to be woken up looking at
| the muzzle of the rifle of whoever decided they own that
| patch.
| dugmartin wrote:
| Directly east of the Mississippi is the Shawnee National
| Forest in Southern Illinois
| (https://www.fs.usda.gov/shawnee) with 289,000 acres with
| both primitive (free but 14 days max per camp spot) and
| dispersed camping allowed.
|
| I grew up in the area and camped many times with friends
| in high school and college by just walking a few miles
| down a trail and then moving off the trail a bit. I
| _believe_ back then the primitive camping limit was 90
| days per spot. The Rainbow People used to push that to
| the max when they moved through the area.
|
| I live in New England now and other than some remote
| state parks here in Massachusetts there isn't any
| primitive camping so you are right about far east of the
| Mississippi.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I'm in the PNW and national forests with dispersed
| camping are everywhere. It's glorious, I can drop
| everything and disappear into the woods and mountains at
| any moment.
| a3_nm wrote:
| This is not really correct -- it is not true, for example, in
| many of the national parks in which people typically hike.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| For others who didn't know bivouac is camping without any
| sort of tent or shelter. In terms of doing a long hike this
| seems completely unrealistic because you can't rule out bad
| weather.
| Lio wrote:
| This might sound like a daft question but is a bivi bag
| allowed?
|
| If (as the name would imply) it is then it's not so bad.
|
| Lots of long distance cyclists use this approach in areas
| where camping is not strictly allowed.
|
| Personally I prefer a lightweight tent but hve thought
| about getting a supplementary bivibag for stealth.
|
| Either way this route looks magic.
|
| EDIT: having read the page on the site "bivouacking" looks
| pretty permissive. Since all the pictures show small tents
| that all looks vey sensible and better that we have in
| England and Wales (Scotland is very permissive too).
| [deleted]
| Luc wrote:
| > For others who didn't know bivouac is camping without any
| sort of tent or shelter.
|
| Well that's not correct as far as the subject of the
| article goes. In France at least the term also covers
| camping in an light tent.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying, that is not what the definitions I
| found via Google said
| kergonath wrote:
| I can confirm that Google is wrong in this case. Sleeping
| outside without a tent is generally referred to as
| "dormir a la belle etoile", but it is not necessarily
| implied in "bivouac".
|
| From my experience (which varies, the rules are local and
| not nation-wide laws) the difference is whether you can
| stand in your tent or not. I have seen whether you can
| carry your tent with your backpack used as a criterion as
| well.
| justinator wrote:
| If it rains, I think there's 0 chance that anyone would
| blink if you put up a tarp for additional shelter.
|
| You're also more likely than not a stone's throw from a
| cheap municipal campsite that at least has a restaurant
| attached to it with a Michelin Star. This is France, after
| all!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| There are only 632 Michelin starred restaurants in
| France, and it is only the 6th most-dense country for
| such establishments. So no, probably not a stones throw
| away. Still, probably a great boulangerie to make up for
| it.
|
| Apparently, Japan is where you want to be if you want to
| have the lowest average distance to a Michelin restaurant
| [0]
|
| [0] https://www.chefspencil.com/density-of-michelin-
| starred-rest...
| justeleblanc wrote:
| There's nothing that makes a joke funnier than someone
| who explains why that joke is statistically unsound.
| justinator wrote:
| The actual funny part of it is that campsites in France
| are actually starred just like Michelin restaurants on
| their maps (and on their signs - France of course loves
| to over-sign everything). A 3 star municipal campsite
| could be 40 Euros for the night!
|
| One of the reasons I spent so many nights in apple
| orchards.
| j7f3 wrote:
| There you go. That's why if I choose to go on a long
| distance hike it will be in the US rather than France.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| At your service, with delight!
| justinator wrote:
| Here's one 6km away from camping
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/muFXPTy9okhex6U48
|
| Here's one 3km away,
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/Qe3QHtKzo6BQ9Hiz9
|
| < 3km,
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/QRob7cDWYZ2ufuQi6
|
| 2.3km
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/3kotrgfmjUT4kERbA
|
| I'm sure we can find one closer, but <10km seems to be
| not out of the ordinary.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| France is 643,801km^2 (that number may include some
| departments not physically part of "Metropolitan
| France"). If they were uniformly distributed, 632
| restaurants would be 1 per 1018km^2. A land area of
| 1018km^2 is actually a box about 32km per side, and so on
| average, a restaurant and a campground would be about
| 16km apart.
|
| So ... you're not far off.
|
| _IFFFFF_ the restaurants were evenly distributed. They
| almost certainly are not.
| j7f3 wrote:
| Do they have a Michelin star system for campsites in
| France as well? With rankings for grass softness and
| lavatory fragrance?
| yodsanklai wrote:
| No, you can use a tent, as long as you don't stay more than
| one night.
| silverfrost wrote:
| In my experience the French are very tolerant provided you are
| not making a nuisance of yourself.
| justinator wrote:
| Not allowed, but certainly tolerated. I camped in many an apple
| tree nursery for months in France, with only a few drunken
| teens joining me. The gypsy camps were also very accommodating.
| You could find safe enough places in the middle of Paris to set
| up a tent.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Wild camping is not allowed in France
|
| That is not true. It is disallowed in some cases (though these
| cases involve things like close to listed buildings, which can
| be quite difficult to know without some research). The country
| is also covered with camping sites, and refuges in the
| mountains.
| kzrdude wrote:
| There's an app for this trail with more information. But I
| would have expected some info about lodging on the site, just
| to set expectations, do people walk with tents, or doable
| without?
| benguillet wrote:
| I did a part of it last year. You need to walk with your
| tent, you won't reach a lodging site every night. I think the
| longest stretch without civilization (no village/town to buy
| food etc) is 5 days. So you also need to manage. your food
| and water supply.
|
| The app is very helpful for that as it gives you water, food
| and lodging information on the trail related to your current
| position (so for instance you can see that in 10km there is a
| river/water fountain/grocery store etc.)
| j7f3 wrote:
| 5 days without a resupply is not bad at all. What about
| camping? Someone here said you are not allowed to pitch
| your tent on the trail. That would make the whole thing
| expensive and a logistical nightmare.
| bvanderveen wrote:
| Good luck finishing that on a tourist visa! Plus, camping is
| prohibited in France, so you'll need to walk to a town to crash
| every night. Huh!
| benguillet wrote:
| That's not true. You can bivouac (== 1 night stay) anywhere in
| France where it's not explicitly forbidden (e.g
| cities/towns/national parks etc). I did a small part of it last
| year and slept in a tent 5 out 6 nights.
| carabiner wrote:
| Yes, according to the creator, 70% of the trail has bivouacs
| as a possibility. So 2/3 of the trail. With 1 town every 3
| days of hiking, it should be totally workable (though perhaps
| expensive to stay in towns a lot).
| carabiner wrote:
| Some Americans have completed it on a long-stay visa.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| It'd be about 20 miles per day if you're just on a normal visit
| with no visa at all. Nothing too out of the ordinary for people
| who do this kind of long distance backpacking.
|
| Camping appears to be allowed along most of it according to the
| website.
| holoduke wrote:
| If there is one country with many campings its france. You find
| them even in the smallest villages. Wild camping is not really
| necessary. Camping muncipals are very cheap.
| j7f3 wrote:
| Like how cheap is very cheap? If you go 100 days and each
| night is 10 euros that's 1000 euros in additional costs. For
| some people it's a non starter.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| If you're doing low profile onenighters there's about zero
| chance to be bothered about it. Source : I did it a long time
| ago, I crossed France with my backpack from east to west then
| went in England.
|
| Only once a woman asked me what I was doing in her field, I
| asked politely if I could stay the night, she said one night is
| OK and that was it. The only reason I had this encounter is
| because I was so tired that I didn't bother to look for a
| hidden place. I just built my tent in the middle of her flat
| field.
| robopsychology wrote:
| If people are considering doing this either camp after sunset
| and be gone before sunrise or knock on the farmhouse and ask
| if you can camp in the corner of a field in their land. 99%
| of people will say yes and appreciate you asking (you might
| get some free food out of it too!), and the 1% who do care
| will be pissed if they find you which you want to avoid
| anyway.
| uptime wrote:
| The language choices for the newsletter display as 'French' or
| 'Francais'. Touche, nice touch!
| Wronnay wrote:
| Only on the homepage area. If you try it on the footer, it
| shows French and English.
| carabiner wrote:
| This trail only opened last year, and was inspired by the US
| Pacific Crest Trail. The creator (from Chamonix) quit his tech
| job and journeyed from South America to Canada, and while on the
| PCT wondered why doesn't France have its own grand mountain
| trail? So he and a few others planned this route, crowdfunded an
| app to consolidate its info (campsites, water sources) and came
| up with this.
| https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Mag/Nature/New-3-000...
| justeleblanc wrote:
| Nice story. But all the guy did is take parts of 47 trails that
| have been around for decades and put them in a single map. The
| trail didn't "open last year". The website did, maybe.
| [deleted]
| carabiner wrote:
| Yep - like the article says, he didn't hire backhoes and
| trail crew to build new trail. The route as a new linkup of
| GR's opened last year due to the creation of the app.
| Planning the route of 3,000 km with water sources, road
| crossings, camp sites, towns, points of interest is a massive
| amount of work though. Think of building a Google Maps-level
| rich display of a path across the US starting from just paper
| maps and Wikipedia, knowing that users could potentially be
| in danger in the wilderness if the information is wrong. This
| is a huge effort and I have no doubt that this will become a
| very popular route because of his work. This was a heavy lift
| in GIS!
| justeleblanc wrote:
| All of that was already in the GR footpaths. I mean, come
| on, do you really believe it took a startuper to launch
| hiking in France?!
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| Yep I've done a good chunk of Stage 2 it seems, because much
| of it is part of the Tour du Mont Blanc. I can't rave enough
| about the experience, though. It's a beautiful trek well
| worth doing. Especially that segment.
| namdnay wrote:
| The GR didn't open last year... they've been around longer than
| the author :)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Pommes and oranges and I don't mean it competitively, but the
| Trans Canada Trail system being 24,000km vs France's 3,000km
| really puts into perspective for me just how much space we have
| here.
|
| Europe always feels really small when examining any single
| country. I still feel surprised by the idea that you can drive
| across many of these countries in less than a day.
| bengalister wrote:
| True but you see very different landscapes in these 3000kms and
| probably more diverse than in the 24000km of the Canadian
| trail.
|
| Also if you like history you probably can visit some castles
| from different centuries along the way.
|
| But it is true that on the French trail you cannot experience
| real wilderness where you encounter no humans for days and fear
| to do a bad encounter with wildlife.
|
| The only wildlife that you'd probably see are ibex/chamois,
| beavers, vultures/eagles in the mountains, and if you are lucky
| wild boars, foxes, squirrels, deers, snakes and extremely lucky
| wolves in the Alps and bears in the Pyrenees.
| goplayoutside wrote:
| Unfortunately, the TCT still involves thousands of miles of
| roadwalking.
| maxlamb wrote:
| The 3000km is just one path to cross France. France's GR trail
| system total 60,000km:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GR_footpath
| Waterluvian wrote:
| WOW!
|
| What a great system.
| microtherion wrote:
| Nice! That's almost as much as Switzerland has (The Swiss
| trail system totals 65,000km):
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweizer_Wanderwege
| dudul wrote:
| You probably see more interesting and diverse landscapes in
| 3000 km of France vs 24000 km of Canada.
| j7f3 wrote:
| Western Canada alone is absolutely stunning and wild af. You
| won't find a wilderness like that anywhere in Europe anymore.
| It's not for the faint of heart at all. While I am a pretty
| experienced backpacker I stayed away from most remote areas
| in western Canada. Even a day trip would take me on a peak
| that would be hiked just a few times per year. Zero cell
| service too.
| dudul wrote:
| What does extreme wilderness and no phone service have to
| do with diversity of landscapes?
| newsclues wrote:
| Canada isn't all frozen tundra.
|
| There is forest, mountains, plains, lakes, deserts, jungles,
| etc.
| dudul wrote:
| Nice strawman. I never said otherwise, but it's a fact that
| very few (if any?) countries pack so many diverse
| landscapes in an area as small as France.
| newsclues wrote:
| "You probably see more interesting and diverse landscapes
| in 3000 km of France vs 24000 km of Canada."
|
| Nothing in your comment had any mention of the density of
| diversity.
|
| The idea a vastly smaller area would be more diverse is
| also silly.
|
| You made a foolish, and unsubstantiated claim and are
| trying to say I am presenting straw man arguments,
| hahaha.
| dudul wrote:
| I am legit at a loss of words. The part you quoted
| literally state that in a much shorter distance you can
| see more diverse landscapes. This is literally what these
| numbers and words mean.
|
| As for "The idea a vastly smaller area would be more
| diverse is also silly." I have rarely read something so
| silly. France covers 213k square-miles are you saying
| that it cannot be more diverse than the Sahara that
| covers 3.5M ?
|
| I don't see this conversation leading to anything
| remotely interesting. It is clear that you don't have the
| most elementary knowledge of geography.
| newsclues wrote:
| Canada isn't the Sahara, it is a big diverse area. It's
| spans a big continent. (Is that a straw man argument I
| detect?)
|
| Nothing you've stated infers that France would naturally
| have more diverse landscapes compared to Canada.
|
| I don't know French Geography as much as I do Canadian,
| but I am not uneducated in the subject because we learn
| about it in school for history involving the wars.
|
| I've actually driven across most of Canada, and even I
| was surprised at the diversity. I didn't think I'd be
| driving through desert environments, or rainforests.
| Mountains, and endless farm and forest land was the
| stereotype.
|
| "The geography of France consists of a terrain that is
| mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in the north
| and west and mountainous in the south (including the
| Massif Central and the Pyrenees) and the east (the
| highest points being in the Alps)."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_France
|
| "Canada can be divided into seven physiographic regions:
| the Canadian Shield, the interior plains, the Great
| Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Appalachian region, the
| Western Cordillera, Hudson Bay Lowlands and the Arctic
| Archipelago."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Canada
|
| Much more geographically diverse.
|
| But please, if I am wrong, correct me. But I don't see
| this conversation leading to anything remotely
| interesting either, because you're trying to insult my
| intelligence and you are also incorrect about the facts.
|
| I've unfortunately never been to France, so I look
| forward to being corrected if I am mistaken.
| holoduke wrote:
| But france is extremely diverse in nature relative to its size.
| This trail goes through wet lowlands to coasty areas, through
| ancient vulcanic areas. High mountains, dry grounds etc. You
| have travel a hell lot further in most other places.
| [deleted]
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| The _hexa_ prefix at first made me think that the trail went
| around the entirety of mainland France, commonly known as _l
| 'Hexagone_ [0]. However, from what I see, it "only" goes along 3
| of the 6 sides [1] (not that it makes it any less impressive!).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Hexagone
|
| [1] https://en.hexatrek.com/hiking-trail/hexatrek/the-great-
| fren...
| Someone wrote:
| I never understood that expression. When I look at a the
| outline of France, I see a pentagon, with the Pyrenees and the
| Cote d'Azur forming a single side.
|
| Yes, that's a side made up of a mountain range and a coast, but
| to my eye, it fits way better than the hexagon of
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagone_(France). You can fix
| that around about any somewhat country whose outline isn't very
| elongated such as Germany, Iceland or Poland.
|
| And I'm not the only one.
| https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=https%3A%2F...
| argues a square or a pentagon are better fits for regular
| polygons. I would mare the pentagon slightly irregular to get
| an even better fit.
| blahedo wrote:
| If you directly connect Biarritz to Monaco you do get a
| pentagon and a reasonably good fit to the actual border; but
| the angle between the border and the coast at Perpignan is so
| tight (well under 90deg at higher zoom levels but close to a
| right angle even at a glance) that it feels like it ought to
| be a point of the surrounding polygon. (Treating the Pyrenees
| as a separate "side" from the Med coast also means that each
| side is either land or sea, not both.)
| richk449 wrote:
| > not that it makes it any less impressive!
|
| Covering three sides is exactly the same amount of impressive
| as covering six sides?
|
| I can imagine the impressiveness isn't linear with sides, so it
| doesn't have to half as impressive, but I would expect some
| dependence.
|
| Maybe it saturates? So covering three sides is peak
| impressiveness, and any more sides has no effect?
|
| Although your language leaves open the possibility that
| covering three sides is more impressive than covering six
| sides. Not sure why that would be, but maybe three sides is the
| optimum?
| layer8 wrote:
| Impression is about depth, not length.
| messe wrote:
| Your joke went on too long. If you'd just said "Well, I'd
| call that about half as impressive." and left it at that, I
| doubt you'd be getting downvoted to hell.
| bbx wrote:
| In this case, "hexa" (meaning "6") is the number of stages of
| this trail. A bit arbitrary though but I guess it hints at the
| fact that it's a French trail, France being referred to as
| "l'Hexagone" like you said, even when talking about only part
| of it.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| For hiking trails all over Europe see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_long-distance_paths
| carabiner wrote:
| Also, I thru-hiked the PCT which was significantly longer than
| this. AMA anything about getting into this. I think this is
| incredible and closest to a spiritual successor to the best parts
| of the PCT. The best parts were the alpine segments, so why not
| have a trail that is mostly in the French Alps?!
| bobek wrote:
| And then you discover
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Hiking_Markers_System and
| https://mapy.cz ;)
| j7f3 wrote:
| And then you quickly determine how horrible an idea it is. It
| allows people who are completely unprepared to hike in
| difficult terrain. They get in trouble and then call for help
| putting the mountain rescue people in danger. There are dozens
| of rescue missions like this every year in the Tatra mountains.
| tmilard wrote:
| Did the Corsica GR 20 from my first vacation out of family.
| Magical souvenir.
| throwaway85858 wrote:
| The GR20 is epic, walking along ridgelines between crazy
| weather systems, thunder and high winds on one side, humid
| tropical updrafts on the other, followed by wild boar
| saucisson, a hunk of bread and corsican beer at the refuge.
| bengalister wrote:
| The trail lacks a segment on the Mediterranean coast.
|
| It could extended by going down to Menton on the Mediterranean
| from the Ecrins National Park via the Queyras and Mercantour
| national parks, but it is quite a detour.
| namdnay wrote:
| Yeah as he's using the GRs he could have done a detour with GR5
| transitivebs wrote:
| Approx how long would it take to do the full thru hike for a
| group of intermediate hikers?
| carabiner wrote:
| The site gives 3-5 months typically. "Intermediate" is broad.
| Do you hike every other week with more than 2k ft elevation
| gain? How much running do you do? If you hike that much and run
| like 15 miles per week or more, you're probably in the faster
| side of that range.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| If the 3000 kilometers are a bit short you can always continue on
| the Via Del Norte in Spain to go to Santiago de Compostela.
|
| Brush up on your dog whispering skills as they're quite a
| nuisance here (it makes my hikes less enjoyable, I always try to
| avoid villages and farms).
| momirlan wrote:
| enticing ! for lovers of country trails, also check the Via
| Transilvanica in Romania: https://www.timeout.com/news/romanias-
| epic-new-transylvanian...
| tisa28101993 wrote:
| [flagged]
| balaji1 wrote:
| The Tour de France of hiking
| seeken wrote:
| For the times/durations- what does 15 a 30 J mean? 15 days - 30
| days?
| jkepler wrote:
| "J" = jour
| [deleted]
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| yep, 15 to 30 days
| kaymanb wrote:
| Very cool! Reminds me of the Trans European Alpine Route (TEAR)
| someone put together a few years ago.
|
| https://www.mountainsandme.ca/tear-overview
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| > 47 Great Hiking GR(r) trails have been brought together in a
| single path to create this thru hike.
|
| Fun fact: the GR trails, and hence this through route, aren't
| allowed to be mapped in OpenStreetMap.
|
| The federation that administers them, the FFRP, claims copyright
| in them as a creative work. French law agrees.
|
| You can see the little red and white trailblazing marks on trees,
| but you can't record that information and put it into OSM. If you
| want a map, you need an FFRP-licensed product.
|
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/France/Itineraires_pedes...
| politelemon wrote:
| That's not fun at all, I'd never have imagined such a level of
| selfishness!
|
| What would happen if a well meaning editor added those trails
| though, is there automated removal or would OSM get in trouble?
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| [dead]
| timwaagh wrote:
| Whoever has time for this sort of thing probably has money to
| pay them.
| subpixel wrote:
| What's not fun at all is when every pretty place is a GPS
| coordinate and then swarmed by people who only want to take a
| picture of themselves and have little regard for nature.
|
| It's very common near where I live for the agencies who
| manage trails and other unique spots to opt-out of GPS-
| enabled maps (like Avenza) and to actively monitor social
| media to ask that people refrain from naming 'photo opp'
| locations.
| louison11 wrote:
| I think the answer is more education, rather than "let's
| keep the best spots secret." So many of our current
| societal problems stem from people's disconnection from
| nature. I don't think a world where more people spend time
| in it is a bad thing. Apps and signs on the trail could
| remind people to leave no trace, be quiet and mindful.
| jfengel wrote:
| Can we try just putting those signs out in the rest of
| the world, too?
| ElFitz wrote:
| There are countries where you could put all the signs in
| the world, and people just would not care.
|
| For better and for worse, France is one of those.
| subroutine wrote:
| Why have the trails at all then? This sounds like some
| gatekeeping bullshit, where you think people who take a few
| pix along the trail are not enjoying nature correctly. They
| don't "respect nature".
| strken wrote:
| The gatekeeping happens because less experienced people
| who drive to a spot are more likely to leave used toilet
| paper and discarded snack wrappers everywhere, not
| because they're "not enjoying nature properly".
| plugin-baby wrote:
| > leave used toilet paper and discarded snack wrappers
| everywhere
|
| This sounds like a good example of not enjoying nature
| properly.
| subpixel wrote:
| Many trails are, in fact, private. Land trusts and
| similar organizations often maintain the trails on
| private land, for private landowners, and are charged
| with both protecting the land and _managing access_.
|
| A very common occurrence is for miles of trail system to
| be accessible by less than a dozen parking spots. This is
| not convenient; and that is on purpose.
|
| Another common thing where I live are preserves that are
| only accessible via paddle, and only via membership in
| the organization (often a land trust, sometimes another
| kinds of nonprofit) that stewards the land, and sometimes
| only if you are lucky enough to "win" a reservation.
| (That process used to be by mail, like Grateful Dead
| tickets; now it is a single morning when everyone wakes
| up at 6 and tries to snag a reservation online.)
|
| There is simply no way to allow mass access and maintain
| the circumstances that make these locations special and
| worth preserving. In the US, the most popular state parks
| (where wild landscapes are ruined, wild animals molested,
| and deadlocked vehicle traffic are the norm) are an
| example of how attempts to do so fail.
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| That's not selfish, GRs are sometimes crossing natural park
| in which nature and wilderness related laws are enforced,
| there are people that can sue you if you smoke a
| cigarette/walk in certain areas/throw some trash at the
| ground/camp in les calanques de marseille for example (the
| south of france is highly inflammable during summer). In
| order to maintain the local biodiversity, keep a minor impact
| of the local wilderness of these places (endangered species
| often), some money has to be raised, experts have to be paid
| to help decisions (should a trail be modified for X reasons
| related to what I said supra, should some trees be cut down
| for security reasons, should some security lanes be created
| to prevent fires etc...), which then requires the
| intervention of professionals to apply these decisions. You
| also have to pay "rangers" sometimes (I don't know of many
| parks of france, i'm mainly talking about calanques and
| cevennes).
|
| When I go climbing I have to buy a local guide documenting
| all the historical climbing spots; the persons that sells the
| guide are the one that equipped and maintened these
| historical routes : is it selfishness ?
| brnt wrote:
| > there are people that can sue you if you smoke a
| cigarette
|
| Wish this was true everywhere!
| dantheman wrote:
| Just charge admission/sell a permit
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| I don't find a good solution to have to pay a license to
| have the right walk the path I walk everyday to go from A
| to B, that my grandparents walked (just as their own
| grandparents did etc...), a path that has been traced by
| the sole circulation of humans in a forest, that local
| people "created" and that is now part of a GR. Maybe
| that's only a psychological effect in my person, because
| something in me is okay with the fact of paying a global
| tax that would fund every activity related to the
| maintenance of the trails and the protection of
| wilderness.
| nroets wrote:
| There can be a free permit register along the trail need
| to sign. This is fairly common for hiking trails in some
| countries. It may also assist search and rescue efforts.
|
| If the permit only covers a small area and it's not at
| the trail head, through hikers will rather buy a permit
| that covers the whole route.
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| How ?
| jpollock wrote:
| The same way you force them to buy a map.
|
| Unless "I have to buy" is a mistranslation.
| elif wrote:
| You can buy the hexatrek map for 50 euro, or each section
| for 10 euro each.
|
| As a long distance hiker, I can promise that this
| monetary decision will result in wilderness rescues if
| not tragedies.
|
| Even trails that have free apps there are people who try
| to go without...
| nroets wrote:
| It's inevitable that people will follow parts of the
| trail without the paper map. Perhaps hunting geo caches.
| Or perhaps looking for a waterfall they saw on Google
| maps or some website.
|
| If it's in OpenStreetMap, they can easily follow
| established trails using an app they are used to. I.e.
| less erosion. And when they get lost or injured, use the
| app to self rescue.
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| You don't have to buy a map, paths begins usually in
| villages or lead to them. Usually when I walk in an
| unknown place I can find some of the red signs that
| indicates a GR, sometimes with distances and names of
| places they lead to. I hiked a lot without a map, never
| struggled to find a GR, local people usually know about
| them very well.
| gumby wrote:
| If you want to do a through hike in the US, don't follow
| this approach. You can't believe how much bigger the
| place is than the anywhere in Europe.
|
| I have hiked sections of the PCT without seeing another
| human for a week. Other western trails are even more
| desolate.
|
| Also backcountry trails are rarely marked, except at some
| trailheads. The government maps were mostly made in the
| 1970s and contain trails that don't exist any more (and
| of course don't include newer trails).
|
| My preference is to carry topo maps + compass and carry a
| small GPS for emergencies if I cannot locate myself.
|
| In Canada the typos are quite good but have in my
| experience even less trail or stream information.
|
| In both countries I recommend planning trips with someone
| local who knows the territory.
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| Yes, and It has some interesting historical implications.
| reillyse wrote:
| Yea, I think this is what is interesting about this
| approach. It's an optional tax If you don't have the
| money you can muddle along or do your research but if you
| have money you can just support the trails by buying a
| map.
|
| Seems easy and efficient. You don't need to charge
| mandatory admission and collect money (like is done in
| the US) you just sell an optional map in local stores.
| Makes sense.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Thats still not fun though.
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| What is fun is that you don't need a map.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Someone made the effort to string together the info on all
| the connecting trails and figure out where to bivouac, etc.,
| and started a non-profit association to continue the effort,
| so they're charging. How is that selfish? If you're that
| intent on hiking the trail without paying then go ahead and
| figure it out on your own.
| namdnay wrote:
| I wouldn't say selfish, just stuck in the past. The money
| they collect from selling official guidebooks pays for the
| maintenance of the trails
| cma wrote:
| Seems absurd until you look at how America is handling it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33835815
| swalling wrote:
| France specifically seems to have a bizarre tolerance for
| "pay to play" culture and limited access in outdoor
| recreation. Countries all around them have shown how strong
| freedom to roam laws
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam) can work.
| Those just don't exist in France. Even in the US, trails
| are largely maintained by volunteers, non-profits, and
| federal institutions.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| This is completely at odds with the French GR
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GR_footpath) trail. There
| are legal mandates to require public access to all
| coastline country wide and they are aggressively
| enforced. Nothing comparable exists in the US or most
| countries.
| swalling wrote:
| There are more miles of coastline with legally mandated
| public access in the US than in France. It's simply
| handled at the state level not the federal.
|
| https://beachapedia.org/Beach_Access
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > There are more miles of coastline with legally mandated
| public access in the US than in France.
|
| This sentence is silly. France is smaller than Texas.
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > There are more miles of coastline with legally mandated
| public access in the US than in France.
|
| France has 2,000 miles of _total_ coastline (before
| considering access); Alaska _alone_ has over 6,600.
|
| A more _sane_ comparison would be _share_ of coastline
| with public access, or maybe for some purposes per-capita
| public access coastline. But absolute miles of public
| access coastline is silly.
| swalling wrote:
| If you include Alaska, ~75% of the US coastline has
| meaningful public access protections. If you don't
| include Alaska, because people don't sunbathe topless
| there or whatever, it's like ~20% based on my napkin
| math?
|
| The original comment was "Nothing comparable exists in
| the US". Given that the entire West Coast and other key
| beach recreation states like North Carolina and Hawaii
| have stellar laws on public access, the root comment was
| simply not true.
| dminor wrote:
| Oregon has similar laws - all beaches are public.
| idoubtit wrote:
| > France specifically seems to have a bizarre tolerance
| for "pay to play" culture and limited access in outdoor
| recreation. Countries all around them have shown how
| strong freedom to roam laws
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam) can work.
|
| Source? Because that Wikipedia page does not state that:
| no word about France, Italy and Spain, and just a little
| "freedom to roam" in UK and Germany.
|
| In France, you can enter any open landscape and bivouac
| there, unless the owner directly states you cannot. The
| law also forbids to build anything too near to the sea,
| breaking access to the coast. Private beaches are
| forbidden. Isn't that more than in most neighbouring
| countries?
|
| > Even in the US, our trails are largely maintained by
| volunteers, non-profits, and federal institutions.
|
| It's the same in France: mostly unpaid helpers from
| associations and paid workers from municipalities.
| [deleted]
| squidgyhead wrote:
| Right of passage laws are not part of the code civile,
| which is the legal system in France. Quebec follows this
| as well - a hiking/climbing had access removed because
| someone was thinking of building something. In common law
| countries areas, the fact that there is a well-used trail
| that has existed for some time means that people get to
| pass, regardless of whether it's private property or not.
| In code-civile jurisdictions, the government steps in and
| buys part of the land to allow for access.
| namdnay wrote:
| The French hiking federation is a nonprofit, and the vast
| majority of members are volunteers. But you still have
| costs, maintaining these routes costs money
|
| They're not charging toll. They've got an outdated
| funding model based on selling maps, and they're sticking
| their head in the sand. But what are the other options?
| Go to the taxpayer? Put up advertising billboards on the
| trails?
| swalling wrote:
| Yes, you use taxpayer funds and volunteer trail crews.
| Having done trail volunteer maintenance myself on the
| PCT, I can tell you it works just fine. There are also
| low cost permits for thru hikers and trailhead parking,
| which offset some of the cost without creating nasty
| externalities like getting people lost (which is what
| happens when you charge for maps).
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| How is this "stuck in the past" ? Is the future about
| building some gates and selling some pass ?
|
| You can totally find the GR and walk through it without a
| map.
| namdnay wrote:
| In the past if you wanted to do a GR you would need to
| buy one of their maps. There's no way you're going to
| plan a 2-week hike without a map
|
| Now that's challenged by the internet
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| What past do you refer to ? GRs exist since 1947. Trails
| didn't change a lot since then, the principle stayed the
| same : Red and white signs to mark the path, and
| "recuperation" of historical paths, made by the
| circulation of persons (think about Le Saint Jacques de
| Compostelle, which is the historical path of the
| pilgrims). It never was "extreme" or "dangerous" to
| follow a trail without a map in france, you would go
| through a lot of villages where you could get some water,
| buy some food, ask for directions and etc...
|
| Very logically, if I were to plan a 2 week hike without a
| map in the past, I would go to a village that's on a GR
| path, walk one week and then go back. I never felt
| unconscious or in danger, I had no cellphone and no map
| namdnay wrote:
| Believe me, hiking the alpine GRs without a map is asking
| for trouble. The trails are very well maintained but you
| need to plan your days, you don't want to be tired out at
| 4pm in the middle of a very rocky portion. And if you
| were to hit fog or heavy rain, a map can be a lifesaver.
|
| I'm pretty sure that until the 21st century, nearly
| everyone doing the gr5 for example would have bought a
| map
| lisp-pornstar wrote:
| Well, you picked up one of the most difficult GR,
| situated in one of the most lethal landscape, with one of
| the worst weather, of france. That's not the fairest
| example, because that's not representative of the
| relative triviality of most of GRs. (Even "difficult"
| ones seems trivial compared to GR5.
| DrJokepu wrote:
| That's so weird, I wonder how that works. If I'm the first to
| make a map or a street or any geographic object in France, it
| can't be featured on any other map, unless so license it?
| black_puppydog wrote:
| The gr are pretty well maintained and that takes energy. So
| the analogy is lacking a bit here, even though I think that
| this seems somewhat backward and there should be a better
| solution.
| bromuro wrote:
| Italians don't have this issue with OSM , yet trails are
| very well maintained.
| n_e wrote:
| > That's so weird, I wonder how that works. If I'm the first
| to make a map or a street or any geographic object in France,
| it can't be featured on any other map, unless so license it?
|
| A GR isn't a geographic object, it is a sequence of trails
| that has been arbitrarily chosen by the author among all the
| possible sequences of trails.
| Someone wrote:
| I would guess OpenStreetMap could record the location of each
| marker without linking them in trails or using the official
| logo of the markers ("one of our contributors saw a marker
| labeled '13' here" should be public info, shouldn't it?), but
| even if that's the case, I can see they don't have the
| resources to go and try that in court.
| PostOnce wrote:
| Surely the existence of a trail is a fact, and can therefore be
| mapped, because facts are not copyrightable in most countries?
|
| It's also apparently illegal to insult the President in France,
| but why would anyone outside of France care?
| ada1981 wrote:
| I did the GR20 last year and they were all in AllTrails.
| usr1106 wrote:
| > If you want a map, you need an FFRP-licensed product.
|
| On the government site https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/ one can
| select "Carte topographique IGN" and the GRs seem to be marked.
|
| Whether the government has a license or they are just the
| government I don't know. But as an end user I can use them for
| free. I have not studied the conditions for republication.
| sva_ wrote:
| That is silly, but at least you can download the GPX in a very
| straight-forward way ("The Trail" > "Download GPX"), which you
| can then load in OsmAnd.
| maelito wrote:
| > Fun fact: the GR trails, and hence this through route, aren't
| allowed to be mapped in OpenStreetMap.
|
| This is misleading : the GR trails as a whole, named... but I
| believe all the trails are mapped, they just aren't named or
| continuous.
|
| See this one for instance :
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/323697041#map=16/48.3484/-...
|
| In the mountains, it can be a problem, more than on the coast.
| louison11 wrote:
| Surely the coordinates still get leaked through 3rd party apps
| like Strava, then become visible on the Strava Heatmap. Quite
| ridiculous they'd try to keep the information private in this
| day and age.
| fancymcpoopoo wrote:
| love this! i'm wealthy and not creative or chartiable so i just
| walk to feel good. /s
| 867-5309 wrote:
| was thinking the same - can't do this with a job, spouse,
| children or pets. who the flip has 3 to 5 months to spare?
|
| if you're lucky enough to live to retirement age I can't see
| long distance walking and camping being much fun with 70-year-
| old bones (and bladder)
| reiichiroh wrote:
| Just ride a Segway.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| towing an HGV battery?
| carabiner wrote:
| You might be surprised. I did the PCT which was significantly
| longer, and I met baristas, grocery store clerks, long haul
| truck drivers and so on doing it. Living in a tent is pretty
| cheap, and that's why homeless people do it.
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