We have just got back from walking the GR5 from Lake Geneva (Lac Leman) back to St Gervais, and it is a fantastic trip, well worth the 7 days of effort!
The GR5 is one of the European long distance trails, and the full GR5 certainly comes into the category of long distance, starting as it does from Amsterdam, and finishing in Nice!
Only about a dozen people a year complete the whole trip, but like many other people, we did the most popular stretch from St Gingolph on the border between France and Switzerland on Lac Leman to Les Houches in the Chamonix valley. We then swapped GR’s as it where and followed some of the GR du Pay du Mont Blanc back to our home in St Gervais.
We will be posting a full account of the trip on our e-zine soon so look out for it.
Hi I am planning to walk from Evian to Les houches beginning on the 20th September 2005 and would value your views upon places to stay/ wild camps. I will be walking alone and carrying a mini-tent. I completed the GR 20 in June 2005 and in 2003 walked from the Atlantic to the Pyrenees using the GR 10, GR 11 and haute route.
Peter,
We Bivvied for most nights whilst doing this trip so it is certainly possible to wild camp. We found that around Chapel and Samoën that you had to walk a long way either side of these villages/towns to find anywhere to put down our Bivvie bag or pitch a tent where you weren’t in some ones way (Houses, farmland and pastures taking up a lot of the lower valley area). It is therfor worth making your day stanges somewhat different to the standard ones to make sure you don’t have to walk and extra 2 hours at the end of your day to find a suitable camp spot.
It is also worth mentioning that the whole of the ‘Six Fer a Cheval’ area and across to the Brevent is in one nature reserve or another and so technically you shouldn’t camp. I think a discreet overnight camp is not a problem as long as you are not obvious and leave no traces of your stay.
We stayed in refuge for our night below the Col de Antern which was very good vallue, and cooked for ourself outside on our own stove. The gardian was very friendly and accommodating. By september you will have to check if refuges are open as some shut out of the high season (The one coming down from the Brevent was in June when we arrived there in a thunderstorm!).
I don’t have all the specifics on me at the moment but let me know if you would like more detailed information about where we camped and our day stages and I will dig them out for you with pleasure.
Simon.
I walked the GR5, from Lac Leman to Nice in 30 days and wild camped just under half those days. If anyone would like any info on the trip ( where to get food etc.) just send me a e-mail. liamday14@hotmail.com. I did the walk in June 2004.
This message is for Peter Whewell.
Peter: I am wondering if you are the same person as the young medical student whom I met in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1960s? If so, I would like to corrspond with you about your life and career in medicine and mine in molecular biology. I am a professor at the University of California, Davis now.
Thank you and please pardon this e-mail if you are not that perosn.