Hiking Peaks of the Balkans

Peaks of the Balkans Day 2: Valbona-Çerem

After a hearty breakfast we are trudging ourselves uphill. It’s 8:30am. The first meters are fine, on an old track leading to a cellphone tower. The next 500 vertical meters that follow are steep, switchbacking over rocks, small forest, loose gravel until it finally flattens out a bit across a meadow. Antonio spots a snake, which later turns out to be some kind of viper, the most venomous snake you can encounter here. Luckily it…

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Hiking Peaks of the Balkans

Peaks of the Balkans Day 1: Theth-Valbona

I lost my hiker legs. That was entirely expected after a year since any serious hiking (even running fell mostly by the wayside) but damn, it still got me by surprise. There’s expecting and knowing that you lost them, and there is the very real feeling of the burn and the pain and the sweat of lugging your pack up a steep hill asking yourself why you are doing this again. That was our first…

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GR11 Hiking

Day 30: Thinking

Kilometres walked: 14km  / Total distance: 518km / Elevation gain:  810m / Elevation loss: 1045m / Time walked: 4h10min If I’ve been thinking much?, a friend asks me via text. Implying, probably with a hint of sarcasm, that I’m on a journey of self discovery, or out here to answer some bigger question. “Not really”, I write back. And it’s true, I haven’t been thinking much. The trail is a bad place to think. Most…

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GR11 Hiking

Day 17: Flow

Kilometres walked: 12,5km  / Total distance: 323km/ Elevation gain: 836m/ Elevation loss: 1807m / Time walked: 7h15min 12,5 Kilometer in over seven hours. For a runner like me, where distance and time are the only metrics that matter, this is ridiculous. But it’s a testament to the fact that distance matters very little here, and elevation and terrain are the determining factors in how much you can do and how far you can go. On…

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GR11 Hiking

Day 16: Ordesa

Kilometres walked: 26km  / Total distance: 310km/ Elevation gain: 1277m / Elevation loss: 388m / Time walked: 6h30min I leave the campsite before 07:00. I was awake for about an hour in the middle of the night, trying to download new books to my ereader using the WiFi of the camping. I haven’t read much, and not at all last week hiking with Nicole, but I hope I have the time and energy to read…

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GR11 Hiking

Day 11&12: Storm

Kilometres walked: 17km  / Total distance: 249km/ Elevation gain: 995m / Elevation loss: 417m / Time walked: 4h51min (both days combined) First thing I do when I wake up in my hotel bed is checking the weather forecast. It is not looking good. The forecast for today has improved a bit, but tomorrow is looking worse. The Pyrenees are known for having afternoon thunderstorms that are short but intense, but the forecast is now predicting…

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GR11 Hiking

Day 9: Fog

Kilometres walked: 19km / Total distance: 212km/ Elevation gain: 872m / Elevation loss: 900m / Time walked: 6h45min Last night was windy, my tent again flapping in the wind. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong when pitching it: all the guylines and corner points are taut but the fly is still billowing. Or maybe I just need to get used to the noise? In any case, earplugs seem to be the remedy. At least…

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GR11 Hiking

GR11 Day 1: Everybody Has a Plan…

Kilometres walked: 24,5 / Total distance: 33km / Elevation gain: 912m / Elevation loss: 908m / Time walked: 5h40 Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Mike Tyson I had a plan and nearly got punched in the face. Rather than fighting at the risk of getting punched for real I figured it was better to avoid the fight in the first place and live to see another day. My opponent?…

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