Sunday, August 14, 2022

We will start the continuation of our hike that was interrupted last year due to a serious fall on August 15, 2022 in Modane. We will mostly follow the Grande Randonnée 5 (GR 5) or the Grande Traversée des Alpes (GTA) again, but in Saint-Dalmas-Valdebore we will branch off to the GR 52 and make our way to Menton via the Vallée des Merveilles.

We will not start the tour exactly where we had to stop last year (Pralognan) because this place is not accessible by public transport. Instead, we will take the train to Modane in Savoy, which is a good day's hike further south and just under three day's hike north of Briançon, the only (small) city on the entire GTA (except for the cities on the Mediterranean Sea). For a closer orientation, please refer to the enclosed overview maps.

We will probably have to take the hike a bit more leisurely than last year, at least on steep descents, as Ignaz is still slightly handicapped. Although his multiple-fractured right kneecap has healed perfectly, the muscle strength in his right leg is still about one-third weaker than in his left leg. This will be particularly noticeable on steeper descents with large or high steps; these cannot be mastered without walking sticks.

We mostly use the maps of the 'ignrando' app (online and offline), which is somewhat equivalent to 'swisstopo', but an overview can also be found at the following link: https://ignrando.fr/fr/parcours/965727-la-grande-traversee-des-alpes or simply through Google Maps.

We hope for lively and diverse 'participation' through comments and look forward to them; however, we will probably only rarely have the opportunity to respond to them. It would be nice if the monopoly of our esteemed writer from Sankt Gallen from last year could be broken a bit.