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Our Exciting Final day of GR11 Getting to the Cantabrian Sea in Irun, Basque Country | Day 18
That day was the last day of our hike and we planned to do 10kms or so to the town Irun going mostly downhill but not excluding some small uphills of course. So we expected the day to be quite easy and that’s why didn’t have to hurry and wanted to enjoy the trail thoroughly. Sure enough, it was our decision to divide the trail in shorter stages and thus do it in more days. As we have seen the offered stages on the signs were doing 25+kms per day and as a result doing almost 3 of our planned days in one. But to us the more important was…
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Scenic Autumn Easy Trail to take in Cerdanya Valley in Pyrenees | Day 3 – Llivia, Estavar, Odeillo-Via
It was our third day of hiking in the Cerdanya valley region and that day we came to the Spanish enclave – Llivia village, then hiked through Estavar and Bajanda and climbed up to the Odeillo-Via village in France. We had a quiet peaceful night in the fields of Cerdanya when there was almost no wind and all we could hear were the cow’s bells. And compared to the previous night 1800m camping spot it was much warmer too. But we could feel that it was much more humid in the morning. We woke up quite late because we felt quite exhausted after not having a good sleep two previous…
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Surviving the Freezing October Night in Pyrenees, Spain | GR11 section hike to Puigcerda and Llivia
On the second day of GR11 section hike in Catalonia, Spain we started from Pleta dels Anyells at 1800m and had to descend approximately 15kms down to the village Vilallobent, then a town Puigcerda and camped in the fields of Llivia. We had the coldest night ever at our place on the mountain plain when the temperature must have had dropped down to a zero degrees Celsius. And so starting from 4am we couldn’t sleep well as this is when the temperature is at its lowest during the night. Our summer set up with +10 degrees sleeping bags didn’t help either, we had all our warm stuff on us but…
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Bright Colorful October Hike from Planoles to Dorria following the GR11 trail in Pyrenees, Spain | Day 1
On this first day of the GR11 section hike from Planoles to Puigcerda we did around 17kms and got from Planoles to Dorria, ascended 800m from 1200m to 2000m and camped at Pleta dels Anyells. This whole hike of around 50kms we planned to divide in 3 days and starting from Planoles, Spain get to the Puigcerda village following the GR11 and then crossing the Cerdanya valley get to Llivia and ascend up to the Odeillo village, France. We were starting this hike in the late October but as the weather was very nice and warm still we decided to take advantage of it as those could be the last…
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Exploring and Hiking down the Beautiful Comapedrosa Valley on GR11 | Day 6 – Coma de l’Orri to Àreu
On the day 6 of our GR11 we hiked 12kms and 800m from Coma de l’Orri down the Comapedrosa valley and arrived to the village Àreu. We started this day early in the morning as usual feeling quite broken apart from yesterday challenging downhill. Our muscles all over the body were hurting and sore. The night was quiet and fortunately there was no rain. We felt that the air became fresher and cooler and so it was quite a bit colder to sleep. So we had our breakfast without heating it up, gathered everything in our backpacks and we were good to go. The plan for the day was to…
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Impossible Descent on GR11 and Breathtaking Views of Comapedrosa Natural Park | Day 5 – Crossing from Andorra to Spain
In this hike report we are sharing our Day 5 of GR11 trail when we hiked from the town La Massana to the Comapedrosa natural park. We woke up that day later than usual in our quiet camp spot in the forest close to the river. It was a nice idyllic place away from the path where we wish we could stay for longer. The day before was a challenging day for us when we had to do more distance than we had planned and arrived to our spot already in the dusk. So we felt broken apart and the muscles were very sore this next day. We decided to…
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The Heat Wave is Real and Extremely Long Day on GR11 Trail in Andorra | Day 4 – Engolasters, Encamp, Coll d’Ordino
On our day 4 of GR11 we hiked around 20kms from the Refugi Fontverd to the town Encamp in Andorra and arrived to Coll d’Ordino. The day before we had a hard time planning that day because we were falling a bit behind our initial plan of the hike. So we decided to divide counting all the extra distance in several days to be able to compensate it step by step. The plan for the day was to get to the town Encamp that was in 8kms going mostly downhill where we wanted to buy some food to resupply. And then we saw the major 1000m uphill further on the…
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Epic border crossing arriving to Andorra on GR11 and the Tour of a Typical Refuge | Day 3 – Vallcivera, Refugi de l’Illa, Refugi Fontverd
On our third day of hiking GR11 in Catalonia we did around 16kms from the Cabana dels Espravers, crossed the border from Spain to Andorra and arrived to the Refugi Fontverd. We slept in for half an hour because the sound of the river we camped by was quite loud and thus we didn’t hear the alarm. So we woke up at 7am instead of 6am but tried to move quickly and get out on the trail in time and escape extreme hot hours. Also we wanted to do our uphill until 12am. On the map we saw that we’ll have to conquer a 6km 800m uphill that seemed to…
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First Challenging Day of Hiking and Meeting the Sunset on GR11 in Pyrenees, Spain | Day 2 Refugi Malniu – Cabana dels Espravers
It was our second day of a GR11 section hike when we did 12kms getting from the Refugi de Malniu to the shelter Espravals in Pyrenees, Spain. For that day, we planned to start our trail as early as possible and we did wake up at 6am as we had a quiet warm night and slept quite well. Also the terrain where we camped was relatively flat so it helped a lot too. Unexpectedly there was a bit of rain that night and we even heard the thunder somewhere in the distance. But already being used to the changeable mountain weather we knew that it is a normal thing to…
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How to Bivouac or Wild Camp on GR11 trail in Pyrenees, Spain? | Day 1 from Guils de Cerdanya to Refugi Malniu
These hike report series is going to feature our long distance section hike of GR11 trail. We started doing it in the very end of July 2020 and were very excited to discover what this trail would bring us. The GR trails in Europe are very similar to the popular AT or PCT trails you can find in US and can extend for many miles in the distance crossing pretty much all the European countries. So there is plenty of choice depending on the direction you want to take. The term GR itself stands for the Grand Randonee or the Great Trail. We had been willing to do this trail…
