Irún - Col de erlaitz

No words seem grandiose enough to constitute the first sentence of a blog detailing the first thru-hike in three years. The world has changed irrevocably since I wrote out the blog for the GR20 in 2019. I was 24 and didn’t need coffee to survive the day. I’d never thought about my age, my student loan was still a digestible size, my parents were still what I considered to be middle aged. Fast forward to 2022, I was on the other side of a Master’s degree, a global pandemic, World War III, a world economy in shambles, my mom had heart failure – but I also nailed a research position at a world-leading organisation and was living my dream London life. I don’t know exactly where that balance leaves us. This was the backdrop of my preparation for the GR11. It was my Plan B trip after plane tickets to the USA were too expensive for me to do the Pacific Crest Trail. I’d been given the green light from my boss to take all of my annual leave at once, meaning I hadn’t had a proper holiday in three years. By the time I got a £100 Uber to Gatwick Airport to catch my morning flight during a rail strike, I was simultaneously exhausted and so ready for an adventure.

I came to the GR11 with open hands. Unlike the thru-hikes I undertook in my early twenties, I did not set out on this journey with a specific objective or idea of what I needed to discover or achieve. I’d built up a level of existential numbness to survive the past two years, which on one hand enabled to me function like a normal human being, but I also missed the breath-taking highs of what people call my “intense” personality. I had been to the utmost edges of my mind; I was way beyond the point of needing a trip to Bali to “find myself” and all that jazz we associate with big adventures. If anything, what I looked for was an inner validation that I still belonged in this world, that I was still capable of the wilderness feats my younger self pursued with such gusto and extreme confidence. That despite passing the physical precipice of 25, I could still smash out some decent miles. The sudden aging had caught me entirely unaware, but numerous aches now accompanied my regular life and fuelled constant complaining. But more than anything, I wanted to feel at home in the wild again, a space which had always been mine no matter what state the rest of my life was in.

Naturally, Vueling Airlines threw me every curveball it could. I’d sat at the gate for about five minutes when they announced that the flight was cancelled, and the next flight to Bilbao would leave in three days. I was not offered food, accommodation, or a suitable alternative no matter how many editions of Karen or Crying Girl I threw at the handling agents. The ground crew threw me at the customer support service (which you couldn’t reach by being directed to the “complaints” procedure, but by asking to book a new ticket obviously), and the customer service threw me at the website. I knew I would demolish them when I took the case to the Civil Aviation Authority, but at the time I desperately just needed to leave the British Isles.

The GR11 stretches 836 km from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean across the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. It runs alongside the GR10, the French side equivalent, and the Haute Route Pyrenees which traverses the two countries interchangeably. The GR11 had two notable advantages: the Spanish side of the mountains were generally sunnier, and you didn’t have to deal with the French. Mostly. The Pyrenees are a remote region. There are no big cities particularly close to the Atlantic starting point, meaning that any overseas travel itinerary would be riddled with compromise. Seeing as my original flight to Bilbao was bust, I decided to go rogue and book a new ticket to Bordeaux and get a train to the border town of Hendaye from which I could actually start walking. After spending the last two years unlearning to have hope and expectations because everything would eventually end up cancelled or ruined somehow, this turn of events was but another hallmark of forced adaptability.

This was the uncharming prelude to me standing at 18.00 in the afternoon sun at the train station in Irún, the official starting point of the trail. My Icebreaker merino t-shirt had somehow, grotesquely, retained the scent of its two previous thru-hikes, smelling strongly of vinegar and decay before I’d even taken a single step eastwards. I was armed with the GR11 Cicerone guidebook by Brian Johnson, after the great success on the GR20 using the equivalent authored by dearly beloved Paddy Dillon. Brian and I were off to a rocky start: the first two stages of the trail were both 30 km and described as “too long” by the author himself – raising the question of why he as the primary authority on the stages hadn’t simply shortened them. I knew there was no way I’d make it that far before nightfall. My only ambition was to do a decent chunk of miles and find a suitable spot to camp. I new right from the onset that I’d never reach the Mediterranean coast, my goal was the town of Piugcerdá two days beyond Andorra, 500-something kilometres away. This would be my longest thru-hike since the Te Araroa, and I had no idea how either body or mind would react to the extreme lifestyle change.

So I set off. Out of town, climbing several hundred metres up the steep hills beyond Irún. I carried only one day of resupplies as the next town was a mere day away, a luxury I’d never had on any other trip I’d ever taken. And yet. I was utterly unprepared for the biggest nemesis of the Basque Country: the stifling humidity. All my big thru-hikes have been in hot climates, on the Te Araroa there were days when the mercury climbed to 40C. But this was an entirely different ballgame. Sweat poured out of every pore in my body until I could barely hold on to my slippery trekking poles. I empathised heavily with lobsters that are boiled live. My thoughts raced back to an article I’d recently read in The Economist which described the bulb temperature at which humans start cooking. Surely this wasn’t far from that… At the first water point high above the coast between a series of farmhouses, I dumped my pack down and shook out electrolyte tablets for both my bottles. I’d brought three packs of my favourite brand in a moment of enlightenment following the extreme heatwaves the UK had seen that summer. Best decision ever.

500 altitude metres up. Felt like I was sweating acid. My hair was now too long to be contained in a bun, but even the braid against my neck felt intolerably hot. The broad forest trail swept upwards through the woods beneath rows of power lines. Thickly lined trees shut out any wind, and swarms of black flies would engulf me if I stopped for even half a second to take a swig of my electrolyte water. I squished three between my eyelids as they headed right for my irises. The wooded switchbacks led up to a gradual thinning of the trees until I reached a bald outcrop next to a road. The evening sun filtered down through the clouds, and I could see for miles into the endless green hills of the Basque Country. This was as good a place as any to make the momentous Camp 1.

Shaking out my tent in the sunset, I felt increasingly giddy. Finally I was here! The loud tolling of bells from down by the road came not from cows but from a herd of free-roaming horses, one of which hung around curiously and accepted my enthusiastic cuddles. I lay in my dear ZPacks Duplex facing the setting sun as a farmer came to round up the horses for the night. They were a stunning sight as they cantered towards him, the foals whinnying shrilly in their adorable baby voices. I sat up watching them until the last rays of the sun had set behind the mountains and it became chilly enough to crawl into my sleeping bag. This was it: the wild.

Welcome to the GR11 trail.

 Col de Erlaitz – Col de Lizarrieta, via Bera

After over 2000 km in my ZPacks tent it has become second nature to wake up multiple times every night and graze my hand along the upper tent walls to check for condensation. On this miraculous morning, the rain that was forecast to fall in the night never came, hence I could pack up my almost dry tent in high spirits. The nights were warm here. I’d slept with my sleeping bag as a duvet, a big relief as I hadn’t been able to find any reliable sources describing night temperatures on the GR11. Looking out through the mesh towards the open hills, the landscape was engulfed in thick mist. Typical Basque according to Brian. It was so humid that everything from my pack to my skin felt clammy to touch. My packing skills were somewhat rusty, but I hit the foggy trail with a serrano ham sandwich in hand (something told me there would be quite a few of those for the next month…). The horses had disappeared, and I set off down the hill amidst thick forests of ferns and viny bushes. The only other humans mad enough to be up early during holiday season were, predictably, trail runners in their screaming neon gear.

I walked down, down, down, losing most of the hard-gained altitude from yesterday. The woodlands were depressingly dark, hardly any light at all could penetrate through the fog curtain which hung low enough to obscure almost all sound. I wondered if having gills would help me breathe through the wet air. It seemed to draw moisture out of me the way a sunny day never had. I felt like a clammy raisin, hideously wet but parched at the same time. My palms sweated so much that I almost lost the cork grip on my trekking poles. I’d never experienced anything like it. True to the guidebook’s predictions, water sources in the Basque hills were few and far between. I had dry-camped last night, and there were several kilometres until a small roadside café by a dam. Once at the bottom of the misty valley, the markers looked confusing. I had only ever seen the red and white stripes parallel, but now suddenly they formed a cross. A smarter hiker might have correctly assumed that this meant WRONG WAY, but sleepy raisin Kristin merely saw a flash of red & white and charged on. 20 minutes down a deserted logging road I had to concede my mistake and painstakingly begin the climb back up. Argh!

In addition to the general unpleasantness of the saturated air and obscured views, I started noticing what would become an absolute plague. Every time I stopped for more than half a second, something with wings would invariably bite me. And damn it hurt! No mere mozzie bites, these were the infamous black flies Brian casually mentioned as primarily a problem of early summer. I am a security researcher by profession, so allow me a metaphorical comparison: if a normal fly is an AK-47, and a horse fly is a tank, these flies were like… snipers. Dark grey with a thin, steel-like armour, they stuck onto the back of my legs and bit down until I screamed. I had to whack them multiple times before they’d peel off! It was absolutely grotesque. Not a breath of wind, but I could not stop either to drink, pee, or consult the map before they would attack.

The forests gave away to fields as I emerged out onto a high ridge. Way down in the valley below lay Bera – the original end of stage 1. I snorted at the idea of having come all that way in one day straight out of the starting gate. What had this Brian guy been thinking? The brown dirt trail snaked along the ridges, winding down and down for almost five more kilometres until I finally reached the paved outskirts of the village. Knees already aching worryingly. A dismal record to set on Day 2. Such is the post-25 life. Immediately after entering the flower-decked neighbourhoods, three dogs came running at me barking furiously. No one likes aggressive dogs, but after years of working with horses I could deal with overconfident mammals. I snarled back and lurched towards them with both trekking poles like spears. They yowled and scampered away. Hah! 1-0 to the hiker trash.

Bera was… an education in the rather inconvenient quirks of Spanish village life. No backpacks allowed in the store. Cash only. No, we don’t serve lunch yet. Run to the hardware store 300m back up the road before the siesta starts. I plopped down on a bench outside the little grocery store with a giant yellow peach to air out my soaked feet and enjoy some 4G. I’d been on the trail for less than 24 hrs, and my phone’s Face ID no longer recognised me. My t-shirt smelled unbelievably hideous. I simply could not figure out how it was this bad – I could exercise wearing the same clothes in London several times with hardly any scent at all. Urgh. After half an hour we were officially within lunch acceptability, and I slinked into the only bar for a cappuccino and a somewhat soggy tortilla con patatas. Spanish tortillas are not the Mexican-style wrap, but a thick omelette with sliced potato filling. It is the ideal hiker fuel, a perfect blend of carbs and protein, with fats from the olive oil it probably swam in while being cooked. The cappuccino was a three-layered tower of goodness ending in sweet whipped cream. Oh yeah. I passed a man on my way out of the bar, who immediately turned around to sniff his armpit. Rest assured, señor, it is only Day 2 Kristin you caught a whiff of there.

Now. Stage 2 was another incomprehensible 31 km to the next village, Elizondo. I tried to power walk, a careful balancing act where I risked sweating out my body’s entire fluid content in less than a mile. The humidity felt like it sucked out the water contents of my blood. I inched my way up a serious hill covered in an ocean of ferns. From the eerie little memorial site at the top, Bera looked like a town straight out of the Uncharted video game series – its whiteness so sharp against the bright green that it looked animated.

Along fern-clad ridges down into more forest, back up through forest. Forest everywhere. Return of the sniper flies. Minor (maybe major) meltdown at junction where the “perfect waymarking” had been logged down and no landmarks could show me the way. After 30 minutes of endless roaming around I finally found an ancient marker on a rock and made my way to the Col de Lizarrieta. The book claimed everything was closed in 2017, but no! Two restaurants and shops, a viewpoint shelter where I could camp alongside the small crowd of Haute Route Pyrenees hikers, and the best fries ever.

The col lay literally 40 metres into France, meaning the only person I could converse with was myself. Darkness softly folded around us until I could barely make out the line between the sky and the distant mountains. Cicadas sang in the bushes. I crept into my too hot sleeping bag, tucking every extremity in and away from anything that bit.

 Col de Lizarrieta – Elizondo

My first night of cowboy camping EVER was a success – in the sense that I hadn’t actually woken up with bugs in my sleeping bag. But my fear of it had kept me up half the night anyway, constantly feeling for a tickle where there shouldn’t be one. The mist lay thicker than ever, obscuring every view past ten metres. I could barely make out the pit toilet and the pub across the car park. My sleeping bag, like every surface, was soggy to touch. My skin too was constantly sticky, and it was slowly driving me insane.

You’d be surprised how much the one hour time difference between the UK and central Europe can impact your sleep. I had no ambitions of getting up before dawn this early on, and most of the other hikers were already gone by the time I hoisted on my ack and set off. The only two who were left were a 50+ French trail running couple doing insane miles. They didn’t speak much English, but the woman especially seemed flabbergasted to learn that I was hiking to Andorra alone.

“You are SO brave! So very brave”

I smiled warmly and thanked her, wishing them both a bon voyage onwards. But in all honesty, I don’t consider myself brave at all for thru-hiking solo. In order for something to be brave, there needs to be an element of fear, or at the very least apprehension, which you overcome. The act of overcoming is the bravery. Doing something which does not scare you in the first place is thus by definition not brave. The moment I most keenly observed that what I was doing was indeed rather gutsy was probably on the plane to Dubai when I was 22 and heading to New Zealand for the Te Araroa. That sensation of extreme excitement mixed with “holy shit you’re actually doing this now” realisation. But that too had not been fear as much as a healthy respect and anticipation for the undertaking.

Also, none of my thru-hikes come anywhere near to being the hardest things I have ever done. Hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever done was writing my MA dissertation during the first lockdown. Living through the two years that followed March 2020 was the next-hardest. Finding a job in London when the whole job market had died was hard as hell. Seeing my mother age 10 years in a week as she was treated for heart failure in hospital was horrifically hard because I couldn’t do anything – I couldn’t lift a car off her or take a bullet for her or any of the other countless hard things I would rather have done. My undergrad years were extremely lonely and painful and hard. But they had also led to me becoming a thru-hiker, so that hardship made sense in a way that the recent years did not. Bottom line, carrying a backpack over however many mountain ranges that lay ahead in 30C degree heat was no picnic – but it also was decidedly not hard in the way that the really hard things in life are hard. It was a meticulous, tangible, purposeful effort which could certainly hurt – but in a profoundly different way than what hurts us emotionally. In fact, I think not thru-hiking would have hurt far more.

On that existential note (which in thought-form took about five seconds to pass through my head), I set off into the heavy mist. As usual, my poles threatened to slip from my grasp with stickiness within five minutes. It was getting old. I climbed up a steep col in max discomfort. I had discovered to my utter horror that my new phone didn’t download music from my Apple ID, and hence I was faced with a month of no music and no distraction. My only salvation was some previously downloaded episodes of the good old Savage Lovecast and Tough Girl Challenges, the ultimate mix of hilarity and adventure inspiration. Oceans of ferns stood stock still as there wasn’t the merest hint of a breeze. Coming over the col, I looked down to see a dazzlingly white pony, a snowdrop amid the evergreen.

I stopped for my bread & ham break after four identical cols. The sun was perpetually covered by a film of mist which was clearly never going to burn off. I had sweated through my padded sports bra to the point where I was afraid someone would ask me where I’d left the baby. The current Lovecast episode I was listening to was about the rise of monkeypox. It truly did feel like the world was going to end. One historic time after the next, we certainly have not picked the ideal time to be young. I’d give anything for some precedented times, thank you.

Beech forest. More hills. Paddocks inhabited by tiny equine lawn mowers. I’d seen this outside Bera too, people in the Basque country appeared to keep miniature horses to frisée the garden. They were smaller than an average husky and absolutely precious.

On the last high hill before Elizondo I could not take another step on my overheated feet and sat down right on the path. Ow ow ow. What the heck was going on here? Was I just not good at this anymore? Was I too unfit, too old, too… something for this kind of trek? No way I could accept that, not on Day 3 anyway. I put that thought somewhere I would never find it again and trotted down to Elizondo wearing three Compeed pads on each foot.

Elizondo was more charming than Bera, with several flower-decked bridges crossing the river which ran straight through the middle of town. There were quite a few people out and about, most of which had gathered in the town square. I brought a crepe from a wooden blue wagon and swallowed it in two bites. Looking around, I could see that every shop front was closed, and it hit me with icy dread: today was Sunday. Shops are closed on Sundays in Spanish villages. That’s what living in London will do to you, you always assume that everything you need sits perpetually at your fingertips. Argh bleeding Christ. I had no more food. And I flipping hated the Basque Country.

I flicked through the guidebook, looking at the next few days ahead. Low elevation. Forest. The same uninspiring terrain that I’d seen a thousand versions of the past three days. I paged onwards to Stage 8, the first official mountain stage. I felt the call of those wide-open spaces (and dry heat) on a primal level. Fuck it. I had nothing to prove. I had suffered enough for a goddamn lifetime, and I was beyond done with it. I was here on a holiday for Christ’s sake, and I would spend that holiday doing something enjoyable. I would take a bus to Pamplona, the only city vaguely nearby, and then another bus back up to Isaba and the mountains. No sooner had I decided than a rush of relief and joy flooded through me. Yes. This was 100% the right thing to do. I basically skipped across the square to find some decent calories and figure out where the town bus stop was.

I had three hours to kill before the bus to Pamplona stopped outside the liveliest restaurant. Once onboard, I reluctantly put on my rather undelicious face mask, a measure which seemed borderline outdated at this point. Everyone was going to Pamplona, and I could rest my forehead against the warm window glass as we left the Basque country and its eternal mist behind. Soon there was nothing but clear blue skies and scorched fields as far as the eye could see. Internet signal popped back in, and I let my brain devour metres of Instagram scrolling. Until… the post I shouldn’t have sought out hit me like a punch to the stomach. I felt hot and cold at the same time, sudden tears stung my eyes. I locked my phone and sat on my hands as the outskirts of Pamplona passed in a blur. This is not the moment to disclose what the post was. But stay with me for the whole journey, reader, and everything will become clear.

Pamplona was an oven, but a dry oven at least. I strode through the city to my hostel, attracting the stares of every passing human – particularly males over 40. Sigh. Hobbled to Carrefour Express for avocado, peaches, fruit liquorice, chips. Back in the clean room, stripped down and threw every disgusting item of clothing in the sink along with all the hand soap I could squeeze out of the dispenser. That would have to do it for now, I was unlikely to encounter a washing machine for the remainder of the trip. I lay down in bed with a hollow emptiness in my chest, desperately trying not to think about that which I thought about all the time. Tomorrow the mountains would chase my demons away-

 Isaba - zuriza

Behold, my t-shirt no longer smelled like carcass! It certainly didn’t smell like Dior either - but hey. The last thing we want is to attract unwelcome attention. My socks had dried in the windowsill overnight, and I stuffed all my belongings down my pack alongside more than one bag of fruit liquorice. The guidebook promised a store at today’s destination, the campground in Zuriza, so despite the ample selection Pamplona offered, I wasn’t too bothered with resupply. I performed the unparalleled ambidextrous feat of braiding my hair into a stellar Dutch braid. The decision to forego a hairbrush for a whole month now seemed slightly more precarious than it had back in my London bedroom. I would have to do what women did on remote expeditions: wear a braid at all times and only let loose in the shower. Now, vamos a la playa! Figuratively.

My bus left at three in the afternoon, a slightly inconvenient waste of time meaning I would have to take the short official trail to Zuriza instead of the scrambly, high-level alternate. I sat in the Pamplona city park for hours, the way I’d sat so often under the cherry trees in Green Park. Solo downtime was no longer a particular strength of mine, and I suddenly felt alone in a way I’d never felt on any other hike ever. Had I done the right thing to come here? I had cultivated an amazing life for myself in London. My graduation in June which saw all of us from King’s College reunited had been the missing piece of the puzzle which catapulted me out of my two-year depression and back to the person I wanted to be. I was back to being intensely, ferociously happy. Sure, there were still certain things I tried to avoid as much as possible: quiet nights alone in my room, too empty weekends. I took great care to set myself up for success, and it was working. I had consciously done the exact opposite of what the modern self-care narratives prescribed. I found meditation horrific, and honestly – manifestations? What was I supposed to do, stand in front of the mirror and say “I am rich. I am powerful”? Jesus wept. No, I had thrown myself into everything available to avoid those dark hours of rumination which had preoccupied me for so long. I wasn’t taking a step back, I was taking a step in. My life was a whirlwind of friends and brunches and park walks and bookstores and dates and daytrips and hobby projects (who starts ballet at 26?) until it was bursting at the seams. I said yes to everything as a rule. A million little moments of awe and love and gratitude. That was happiness. Ambition which stretches far beyond the narrow trajectory of our careers, but which permeates every corner of our personal lives. I didn’t want to do one thing or be one thing, I wanted everything. I wanted a thru-hike. And now, here I was, so why wasn’t I feeling like a million slightly overheated dollars?

This is where the advantage of having a more mature brain finally set in. At 24 I would immediately have assumed that my lack of good vibes equated to a mistake. I would have been overcome with doubt and seriously questioned whether I’d screwed up big time by using all of my leave on this one trip. I’d always possessed an unfortunate combination of extreme competitiveness and a mortal fear of failure, which left a narrow window for good outcomes. But now I was 27 with a fully developed brain, I’d survived the biggest shitstorm since WWII, and I knew that things could change both slowly and suddenly. On my other hikes I have always felt like the centre of the universe, like everyone else was missing out by not being here. Now I acutely felt the presence of the outside world, and I wanted the people I loved with me here. I swatted away a wasp from my bag of gummies. It was almost time to head to the bus station. While the gnawing feeling inside me persisted, I tried thinking of the Rilke poem I had drawn out and hung up in my room earlier that year.

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and Terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final

The bus to Isaba took nearly two hours. Brown fields stretched for miles in every direction, we drove past a stunning turquoise lake which could have been the twin of Lake Pukaki in New Zealand (there is no higher compliment). Slowly the fields turned into hills and the hills turned into mountains. The road snakes through a deep gorge alongside a pristine green river. I sat glued to the window. This was the real deal, what I had come for. I felt instantly a hundred times better. Gone was the oppressive forest, this was the land of open views and pristine swimming holes. My land.

I stepped off the bus into delicious dry heat. I was so excited I skipped down the main road, past the water fountain and into the wild. The woods here were mountain woods, open and airy with ample afternoon sunlight filtering through. The woods soon opened up into a wide gravel road and I threw myself onto it at max speed. Heaven! This was my turf! My worries evaporated as I raced up the track. White mountains towered ahead above the trees. The track glowed white in the still-high afternoon sun. I imagined the terrain ahead as the path briefly entered sunny forests and trailed along a small green brook. From now on it was pure wild, remote mountains for weeks. I would wild camp below lonely peaks under the stars and be free. I could feel it now, that magnetic pull. Like a hook through your breastbone, it pulls you along a thru-hike for weeks and months and you know you can’t stop until you finished what you came for.

The trail snaked through endless meadows and pine forests, never letting me tire before the next surprise unveiled itself around a bend. Today was a very short stretch with plenty of water, but I was almost too distracted by the beauty to remember to fill up my bottles. After a long climb through the last forest, I emerged onto the Navarros Pass junction (1290m) where a real tarmac road cut through. This was it for Navarra. Ahead lay Aragón, a vast and rugged wilderness where every day would entail altitude gains and losses of 2000-4000 metres. No more hills. This was the wild as you could only imagine it. And it was mine for the taking! I bounced across the road and down the dry dirt trail which led to the wide river valley and Zuriza. It was so pretty I squealed out loud. The entire valley floor was golden green in the setting sun, wildflowers dotted the earth, and the rushing river promised instant respite from the heat. Eureka!

Walking down along the wide gravel road, the day’s destination and outpost of civilisation finally emerged. Three fat guys were washing themselves naked in the river. I shuddered and thanked the heavens I hadn’t filled my water bottles downstream. I walked on 200m up the road until I could see the campground. Zuriza was nothing like I’d imagined. I had expected a town identical to Bera and Elizondo, but there was only a campground and (TERROR) no store. Fucking Brian. Fucking asshole guidebook author Brian who was wrong about everything and had now stranded me in the wild with no shop and a three day stretch until the next town ahead. I was fucked. The kind hosts of the restaurant sold me a huge baguette which stuck up from my outer mesh pocket like a flagpole. I fantasised about birds flying in to steal some only to be grabbed by my fist and grilled on my stove. These types of food fantasies usually hit after a week++, having them this early on was a tad concerning. Camping on the crowded lawn wasn’t particularly appealing. The road ahead winded towards the mountains, and I decided to grab dinner at the restaurant and then push on a bit further. Dinner consisted of “rabbit”, although I’m pretty sure even Pyrenean rabbits don’t have wings. I wondered what other creatures masqueraded as entrées in the fridge.

Two sweaty guys who looked about my age, one bearded and one blonde, stood in line to the reception. They both had thru-hiker sized backpacks on. I pounced on them instantly. Jake (30) was from Australia, has spent a zero in Isaba to nurse a dodgy ankle, first thru-hike. Max (21) was from Denmark (first Scandi thru-hiker ever encountered!), was pushing hard but battled post-pandemic lack of fitness, also first-thru hike. I adopted them right away. Finding a trail family is always one of the supreme highlights of thru-hiking. You can get along splendidly with someone you’d never exchange a word with in your regular life by virtue of sharing such an extreme experience. You bond over pain, views, snacks, and gear reviews. Max was staying in Zuriza while Jake headed onwards into the twilight. He would camp at the base of the mountains, but I reckoned I’d catch him the next day.

A Spanish man a few years my senior smiled at me when he walked past my table and asked if he could sit down. I was on prime hiker friendly mode and happily entertained it for a while. “D” was a teacher section hiking the GR11. I was happy to have made three friends in one evening when he casually mentioned he had rented a cabin which had room for two. “We can make a fire, have some wine…” Ugh. Another one bites the dust. Shouldn’t have washed that t-shirt. I left Zuriza with my baguette flagpole and 500g of leather-sole looking ham. I had absolutely no idea how I’d make it without more food, I could only pray the mountain refuges ahead would sell me some. It was completely dark now and I could barely make out the pale contours of the road against the night sky. Stars popped out by the hundreds of millions. I barely ever saw stars anymore in London, and I stood mouth agape as nebulas emerged in long banners across the sky. I pitched my tent in the light of my headlamp on a small flat spot right next to the road. This was truly the wild I had dreamt of and missed. I snuggled into my fluffy sleeping bag and fell asleep with my glasses on so I wouldn’t miss the stars for a single second.