I’m on the easiest part of one of the easiest stages of the GR20 – the self-proclaimed toughest tour in Europe – so of course here I am alone, lost in a cloud, hands so cold I’m seriously considering peeing on them.
The guidebook advertised this as a short, flat day, only 10 miles (16.5 km) with 2,000 feet of elevation gain. I had circled it as one to enjoy. If it was warm, I might take a dip in Lac de Ninu and put out the fire in my calves. But when the hail came and added spikes to the pounding wind, and the thunder began to drum behind the empty gray horizon, I thought, “It’s better to put on more layers than take them off.” I struggle with the zippers, but find just about enough digital power without resorting to anything unsanitary.
The fog on the high plain of Bocca a Reta is total, extinguishing all flickers, muffling every sound and shrinking the world into an alien dome. A black salamander shivers in a divot. Bells chime softly from the necks of unknown beasts. I stop just as shadows emerge at the edge of my visible boundary, and soon a man floats within range. He hurriedly relays directions and scratches a map into a sandy hollow. Finding the next refuge, Manganu, seems to depend on being able to see the lake. A disheveled teenager approaches us and looks at us with a shiver. I wish them good courage and march on.
Soon the fog lifts enough that I can see a Corsica flag, indicating that I have somehow found shelter, despite not seeing another drop. I poke my head into the hut and see an old man with a cloth cap covering half his face, and a beard covering the rest. He sips a morning pastis and stares into a fire that fills the humid air with wood smoke. I stomp my feet and shake off some of the rain, but he still doesn’t turn around. This doesn’t feel good. I look at my guidebook and realize that this is not Manganu, but just over a mile north of the Vaccaghja Bergerie. This is in fact the stone living room of a shepherd named Noel. He’s seen too much for stray animals to upset him. Every summer, since that beard was adolescent stubble, he practiced transhumance, bringing goats up to graze in the mountain grass.
It’s less of a hike and more of a 10-15 day body mobility challenge that involves crawling, scrambling, sliding and sliding over all kinds of rocks
When I finally reach Manganu, I open the shelter door and feel the warmth of the gas stove. Wet things drip and steam from every hook. All around me are people I’ve been walking with these past few days, holding mugs or slicing saucisson. Miriam and Valentin catch my attention and shuffle along a bench to make room. I had met them the first night, on the eyrie of the Ortu di u Piobbiu refuge. While I was watching the sun slide out of the valley, the fierce wind was lifting my tent from its mooring. I noticed it just as the canvas began to hurtle down the hill, catching it in a mad dash before it approached a precipice. When I returned to my campsite, Miriam and Valentin were waiting. They had seen the pantomime and out of pity they taught me how to pitch when the pins weren’t getting much attention, using stones to slide into the loops where the pins would normally go. There they are again, with a smile, a coffee and a cookie. We look at the shaking windows and can’t help but laugh: this should have been an easy day.
The GR20 is long – almost 200 kilometers along the spine of Corsica between Calenzana and Conca – but it’s the altitude that hurts: 12,700 meters up and down mountains that offer no welcome. It’s less of a walk and more of a 10-15 day body mobility challenge. Especially during the first half you have to crawl, clamber, slide and slide over all kinds of rocks: half-molten bowls, huge flat boulders, bars and blocks of gray and pink. Small holds are the only protection against endless falls. Everyone calls it the toughest tour in Europe; they have a point.
So why bother? Beauty is of course part of that, at least if the weather behaves itself. These are places that can only be reached by foot and by hand, with all the spectacle and cruelty that entails. Jagged peaks slice soft yellow skies. Waterfalls jump off cliffs. Cols tumble into stone cauldrons so deep and steep that they could hide bandits for decades. However, these are well-known treasures that are equaled or improved elsewhere. So again, why?
Everyone is dirty and stumbling as they gather for the final descent. When we catch each other’s eyes, we smile. It was hard and we are tired, but the difficulty was what mattered
I find out on the morning of the last day. I look up from the rocky plateau of Paliri Refuge at the morning star, hanging above the pines in a virgin sky. The sea, not seen since day two, sleeps under a gray duvet. Soon the sun peeks over the horizon and paints color over the clouds: purple, peach, turquoise that belongs in dreams. I grab my phone for a photo, but the scanner doesn’t recognize my worn thumbs. I look at my scarred knee, shivering from the cold, and at my dirty fingernails, and then at everyone around me. Everyone is dirty and stumbling as they gather the tents for the final descent. When we catch each other’s eyes, we smile. It was hard and we are tired, but it is now clear that it was about the difficulty – because we now know that we can do hard things.
That even if you wake up in a hill station with an icy cold wind hitting the tent, backache from a night on the rocks, stiff tendons from yesterday, stomach in pieces from a vague stew, with rain making the rocks slippery, and debris that subtracts a fifth from each step – it is possible to walk up and down a mountain for eight hours. That the challenges of every day are solvable. All those mornings when the task seemed too hard, we packed up, put our feet on the ground, completed one step, then another, and somehow made it to the top. It made the difficulties of normal life manageable.
The essence of the story is journey and return. A main character goes into the woods and, by overcoming an ordeal, gains some wisdom to take home. Stories are told to excite and entertain, but also to explore sides of human nature that normal life rarely reveals. Hard holidays work the same way. You leave your home, with all its trinkets that comfort and coddle, and by devoting all your energy to a challenge, no one is left to ponder regrets or harbor petty grievances. Instead, vital truths emerge. That someone can utter the sentence, “Oh, thank God, they have toilet paper,” and absolute mean it. That the most banal bromide can contain the most beautiful truth. That happiness is not about new things, better clothes, a bigger house; nature and connection are worth much more. That we are strong and can do impossible things. Like walking up mountains. Or just be happy. And we put all that knowledge in our bags and take it down the mountain.