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Hexatrek: The long distance thru hike in France
- jbgreer 4y agoFor 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.
- roelschroeven 4y agoFor 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".
- throw0101c 4y ago* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago 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-del-norte * https://caminoways.com/camino-frances https://caminoways.com/camino-frances If anyone is curious, there are vloggers on YouTube documenting their travels for these.
- thuridas 4y agoThe 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
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y agoTo add to that cultural tidbit, in France the pilgrimage is most commonly known as Saint Jacques de Compostelle or chemins de Compostelle.
- justinator 4y agoIt'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 4y agoYeah the Ways of Saint James is a pilgrimage route (or a catchment thereof until you reach the Camino francés), 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 4y agoNo 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.
- justinator 4y agoI think they meant in Medieval times - some I would assume would be on horseback/cart.
- sulam 4y agoIn medieval times people likely carried less. Pilgrim routes were like tourist attractions these days. Lots of people making money.
- harriet1 4y ago[dead]
- sakopov 4y agoI walked from St Jean Pied de Port, France to Finisterre, Spain twice. It was a great experience and highly recommended.
- kiko123 4y agoMe 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.
- oh_sigh 4y agoNot 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.
- generationP 4y agoThe 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.
- orwin 4y agoBivouac is allowed. So as long as you don't make fire and are up and packed before 9, you're good.
- boudin 4y agoThere's an article about it on the website: https://en.hexatrek.com/hiking-trail/bivouac-rules-in-france https://en.hexatrek.com/hiking-trail/bivouac-rules-in-france
- qbasic_forever 4y agoWow 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 4y agoFrance 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
- Mordisquitos 4y agoThe 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Hexagone [1] https://en.hexatrek.com/hiking-trail/hexatrek/the-great-french-trail https://en.hexatrek.com/hiking-trail/hexatrek/the-great-fren...
- richk449 4y ago> 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?
- Someone 4y agoI never understood that expression. When I look at a the outline of France, I see a pentagon, with the Pyrenees and the Côte 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) 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%2Fwww.pourlascience.fr%2Fsd%2Fmathematiques%2Fpeut-on-vraiment-appeler-la-france-l-hexagone-16640.php#federation=archive.wikiwix.com&tab=url 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.
- tmilard 4y agoDid the Corsica GR 20 from my first vacation out of family. Magical souvenir.
- throwaway85858 4y agoThe 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.
- vrglvrglvrgl 4y ago[dead]
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago> 47 Great Hiking GR® 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/Itinéraires_pédestres_GR™_et_GRP™ https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/France/Itinéraires_pédes...
- DrJokepu 4y agoThat’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 4y agoThe 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 4y agoItalians don’t have this issue with OSM , yet trails are very well maintained.
- n_e 4y ago> 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 4y agoI 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.
- carabiner 4y agoThis 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-3-000km-hiking-trail-takes-trekkers-across-hidden-France https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Mag/Nature/New-3-000...
- justeleblanc 4y agoNice 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.
- ilikehurdles 4y agoYep 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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- carabiner 4y agoYep - 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!
- 4y ago
- Waterluvian 4y agoPommes 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.
- maxlamb 4y agoThe 3000km is just one path to cross France. France’s GR trail system total 60,000km: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GR_footpath https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GR_footpath
- Waterluvian 4y agoWOW! What a great system.
- microtherion 4y agoNice! That's almost as much as Switzerland has (The Swiss trail system totals 65,000km): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweizer_Wanderwege https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweizer_Wanderwege
- nargek 4y agoThe GR are only long trails, and there are in fact 70,000 km, according to the French federation.
- goplayoutside 4y agoUnfortunately, the TCT still involves thousands of miles of roadwalking.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- holoduke 4y agoBut 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.
- seeken 4y agoFor the times/durations- what does 15 à 30 J mean? 15 days - 30 days?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ohgodplsno 4y agoyep, 15 to 30 days
- jkepler 4y ago"J" = jour
- kaymanb 4y agoVery cool! Reminds me of the Trans European Alpine Route (TEAR) someone put together a few years ago. https://www.mountainsandme.ca/tear-overview https://www.mountainsandme.ca/tear-overview
- jmnicolas 4y agoIf 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).
- bvanderveen 4y agoGood 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!
- RandallBrown 4y agoIt'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.
- jmnicolas 4y agoIf 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 4y agoIf 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.
- benguillet 4y agoThat'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 4y ago
- ulnarkressty 4y agoFor hiking trails all over Europe see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_long-distance_paths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_long-distance_paths
- momirlan 4y agoenticing ! for lovers of country trails, also check the Via Transilvanica in Romania: https://www.timeout.com/news/romanias-epic-new-transylvanian-hiking-trail-is-now-open-012522 https://www.timeout.com/news/romanias-epic-new-transylvanian...
- fancymcpoopoo 4y agolove this! i'm wealthy and not creative or chartiable so i just walk to feel good. /s
- 867-5309 4y agowas 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 4y agoJust ride a Segway.
- 867-5309 4y agotowing an HGV battery?
- carabiner 4y agoYou 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.
- aj7 4y agoWhat do the elevations mean?
- Mordisquitos 4y agoI 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_elevation_gain
- aj7 4y agoIn other words, you are saying the elevation gains quoted are useless.
- Mordisquitos 4y agoNo. They are useful as a representation of the overall effort one has to make. The effort made in ascending 500 metres is not recovered when you descend 500 metres. Ascending 1000 m continuously along a 10 km trek is significantly less effort than ascending and descending five 500 m hills along the same distance, even if in the first case your end point is 1 more km above sea-level than where you started, while you remained at the same altitude in the second case.
- carabiner 4y ago? Walking up the stairs in a 1,000 ft tall skyscraper is 1,000 ft of elevation gain. Doing it twice is 2,000 ft gain. Certainly it is useful to know whether the gain is 0, 1,000, or 2,000 because those will call for different amounts of effort and physical fitness. This is the same type of gain expressed in these figures.
- transitivebs 4y agoApprox how long would it take to do the full thru hike for a group of intermediate hikers?
- carabiner 4y agoThe 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.
- tisa28101993 4y ago[flagged]
- balaji1 4y agoThe Tour de France of hiking
- uptime 4y agoThe language choices for the newsletter display as ‘French’ or ‘Français’. Touché, nice touch!
- Wronnay 4y agoOnly on the homepage area. If you try it on the footer, it shows French and English.
- carabiner 4y agoAlso, 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 4y agoAnd then you discover https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Hiking_Markers_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Hiking_Markers_System and https://mapy.cz https://mapy.cz ;)
- j7f3 4y agoAnd 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.
- bengalister 4y agoThe 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 4y agoYeah as he’s using the GRs he could have done a detour with GR5