Trail update #3: sleeping on the GR10
The guys peek out from the cabane’s sleeping loft
Since my last post, bragging on our family fortitude, the universe has seen fit to collect on our bluff. We've had a week of bad weather including heavy rain and fog so thick there were actually two nights we stayed at lakeside refuges without seeing the lake at all. We also all managed to catch a head cold. So, the gritness has become somewhat more (involuntarily) intense. Fortunately now everyone's on the mend and the weather report calls for a week of sun.
But the weather made us appreciate the range of accommodations we've experienced so far on the GR10. Sleeping on the trail is really different from camping in the US.
By far the best accommodation option is a refuge. These are staffed outposts often in very remote locations, many of which must be resupplied via helicopter. Generally you sleep in dormitories but sometimes we get lucky and our family is assigned to a quad room. (Presumably this is because our kids are invariably the only kids at the refuge?) The refuges provide a very French multi-course dinner (even more amazing when you consider the cheese course and after-dinner Armagnac arrived on a helicopter) and breakfast. They’ll even pack you a picnic lunch. Sometimes there's a hot shower, always there's international camaraderie and conversation at the dinner table. Refuges are not cheap (€45 per person is typical) and not frequent enough for every night but they are a true treat on the trail.
Our second favorite accommodation is the village campground. These sweet and friendly patches of grass in tiny towns are, frankly, awesome. For €20 or €30 a night our family has a sunny spot to pitch our tent and use of bathroom and laundry facilities. Sometimes there's a municipal swimming pool and often there's conviviality around a shared picnic table at dinner time.
My third favorite accommodation on the GR10 is the cabane. These are basically ancient stone dwellings, mostly used as intermittent shelter for mountain shepherds but also available to hikers on a first-come, first-served basis. The cabanes are rustic at best, often dirty and cluttered, but they do provide welcome shelter, especially in remote stretches of the GR10 or in inclement weather. Our family will never forget the night we spent listening to heavy rainfall on the tin roof of a remote cabane while a herd of black horses whinnied just outside, curiously poking their heads in the door and around the windows.
Finally there is wild camping which we've done a fair bit of on the trail. No amenities but wow, sometimes the view is priceless.
