Pyrenees HRP - 2004 - Prologue

Sue and Martin's Big Adventure

Prologue

In 2004 I left my job and Sue took a six month sabbatical. I'd already walked the central section of the Haute Route Pyrenées (HRP) in three separate trips, from Lescun to Andorra, in 1990, 1993 and 1994. My ambition was to walk the entire route, which follows the border between France and Spain in the High Pyrenees between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, in one trip. It would take us about eight weeks; flights were booked, leaving home on 24 July and returning on 21 September. Julie Brown was organised to join us for the section from Gavarnie.

Whilst my subsequent GR10 (France) and GR11 (Spain) traverses of the Pyrenees were recorded on these pages, the HRP trip preceded 'Postcard from Timperley'. We did however record our passage by way of a rudimentary sort of 'blog'. That involved sending a daily text message to my daughter Kate, who periodically entered the text into a spreadsheet that was published on topwalks.com. That spreadsheet is still on the website, as is the summary of the trip that was transcribed from the postcards we sent whenever we had the opportunity.

No charger was taken for the Nokia phone, and the battery was still going strong at the end of the trip!

This year, 2019, we have no 'big trip' planned, so I'm hoping to enjoy re-living the 2004 trip, which was the first time I'd been away  from home for more than four weeks, and only the second time I'd been away for more than two weeks - so recollections of that four week trip - in the mid 1970s - is another project.

So for the next few weeks or months, diary entries for our current activities may be interspersed with recollections under a 'Pyrenees 2004' label. You don't have to read them, and some of the entries may be a little tedious, but you are most welcome to share in my indulgence.

I'll be trying to insert some pictures - this was a pre-digital trip so we have negatives and CDs that we got at the time the Fujifilm was processed. I'll also add some route maps using more recently acquired Anquet and Viewranger software.

The picture shown above is of the Georges Véron definitive guide book published by West Col Publications in 1991, our 'bible' for this trip.

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