🥾 ℹ️Total Statsℹ️ 🥾Trekking the GR10 - Through the French 🇫🇷 Pyrenees: Le Sentier des Pyrenees.

Why? To celebrate 10 years of the Tough Girl Podcast.

Goals: Have fun, get a tan, get fit, walk a great trail, share the journey on social media, vlog the adventure for YouTube, film content to enter a short film at the Kendal Mountain 🏔️ Film Festival and get an FKT. 8/8 done ✅ *vlogs coming soon (make sure to subscribe to the Tough Girl YouTube channel)

FKT - Fastest Known Time achieved & verified ✅ 🥳

Standard Point to Point

⏳36 days, 5 hours, 28 mins

Female 🚺 self supported

📍Start date: 4th August 2025 from Hendaye

📍End date: 9th September 2025 at Banyuls-sur-mer

Methods of Travel to get to the start: I was already in London, so: London Underground, Stansted Express, plane, taxi, bus. £279 / €320

On trail stats:

Walking Days: 37 (used for averages)

Rest Days: 1

Travel days: 2

Total time away: 39 days

📖Cicerone Guidebook stages: 55

🥾Total Km: 950. Average daily: 26

🥾Total Miles: 591. Average daily: 16

🦶Total Steps: 1,123,159 Average: 30,356

⏰Earliest start time: 7.40am - day 6

⏰Latest start time: 10.08am - day 18

⏰Earliest end time: 4.10pm - day 3

⏰Latest end time: 9.30pm - day 13

🦶Longest time on feet: 13hrs 10 mins - day 23

Shortest day: 6hrs 45 mins - day 25 - horrendous weather, needed to stop, set the tent up to get dry and warm

⛰️Total Ascent: 53,959m average 1,458m

⛰️ Total Descent: 54,018m average 1,460m

⛰️ Highest Point: Hourquette d’Ossoue 2,734m

💷💶Total Costs: £1,366 / €1,570

💷💶Average costs per day for the whole trip (39 days) : £35 / €40

7 No spend days

💷💶Total costs - not including travel to start & getting home : £883/ €1,013

💷💶Daily costs while on trail : £24 / €28

My aim was to stick to a budget of around €30 per day - which of you are wild camping a lot and shopping from supermarkets is doable.

🏕️🏨🛌Accommodation on trail: 36 nights

Paid Bed: refuge x1 €22, hotel x1 €100 = 2 nights

Bothy/Cabin Bed: 4 nights

Camping Paid: (gite, campsites) 7 nights

Camping Free: (wild camped, or outside refuge) 23

Total nights in my tent: 🏕️ 30

💷💶Total Accommodation Costs: £297 / €341

💷💶Average Accommodation Costs: £8 / €9

Most expensive accommodation: £87 / €100 hotel - day 32

Cheapest paid: £5 / €6 camping

Most expensive camping: £15 / €17 (and they turn the Wi-Fi off in the evening. It was very annoying)

💷💶Total Food Costs: £585 / €672

💷💶Average Food Costs Per day: £16 / €18

I had 4 paid meals out, the rest of the time I was buying food from supermarkets. I would also have ice cream at places.

I do this to keep cost down, but also I’m stoveless ( I don’t like cooking + and I’m lazy when it comes to food).

I get a lot of palate fatigue so I struggle to eat certain foods after while. Eg I can’t eat any more tuna, I would struggle to digest cheese - even putting it in my mouth would make me want to be sick, same with cold meats.

I am doing long days and I’m pushing myself. The way I hike is going to be different to how you may hike, you may never have experienced what I’m talking about with regards to food. But for me it does get to a point where sometimes I lose all interesting food or I just want something simple like ice-cream, yoghurt or custard which is easy to swallow. Plus easy to digest. I also try now to eat protein with some of the more sugary stuff eg jelly sweets followed by nuts.

My diet while hiking is not an ideal way to eat and I don’t eat this type of food normally. I also wouldn’t recommend this diet. The reason it works for me on this trail is because I’m burning 2000 cal plus a day so I need energy. I also lost 7 kg’s in weight by the end of this trip. While eating this type of high sugar foods.

The other interesting thing that does happen is towards the end of the hike I will start craving foods like; sweetcorn, watermelon, salmon, roasted vegetables, lemons et cetera which is my body’s way of telling me I need to start eating healthy now.

I think I am pretty intuitive when it comes to my body and what it is demanding from me. So would say I am dialled into my personal nutrition both at home and while I am on trail. It is not perfect and it is a work in progress and I’m always looking for ways to improve but the Key thing is it is personal nutrition for the adventures and challenges that are you doing.

This is the diet that works for me when I am on long trails stoveless. This is not a diet that I would ever recommend unless you were doing something like this.

Most expensive Food Shop: €62 - I’d been low on food for awhile and was hungry when food shopping (which makes you buy more) I was also buying food for the next three days

💷💶Misc costs: non-really. I needed to buy more toothpaste, tissues, & lip balm. Plus a random €1 tourist tax and a $.60 tourist tax

Gear

👟Trainers: @inov_8 Roclite GTX Mens £140 Waterproof hiking shoes for year-round use. Lightweight, cushioned and featuring STICKYGRIP™ rubber grip. Use TOUGHGIRL15 to get a 15% discount

📲📡Communication & Location Device: @zoleolifeeurope

GPS tracking: @Suunto Run Watch & app £199 - really liking the information and stats it provides.

Backpack: @atompacks £410 designed by me 🥳

Weather

☀️Sunny days - 25 - at the start at the beginning of August the heat was brutal. It was crazy hot like 36° at 10 am in the morning. Ridiculous. I was needing to carry 3 1/2 L of water minimum.

🌧️Rainy days - 11 - it did cool down towards the end of August beginning of September and I was getting away with just carrying 1 L of water because there was more water available and you also drink less water when it’s cloudy and rainy and a lot cooler because you’re not sweating as much.

⚡️thunder & lightning - I think I was pretty lucky on this trip there a couple of days with thunder and lightning and only one horrendous bit of rain which almost collapsed my tent but I was camped outside a refuge.

The other nights when the weather was horrendous, I was able to find shelter in a cabin and in a Bothy. As my tent would not have been able to withstand the winds as it was really exposed area. High in the mountains.

Day 25 was pretty horrific - I stopped walking at 4:20 pm purely due to the weather. it had been seriously, heavy rain, all day. My waterproofs had collapsed. I was cold and wet. I wasn’t able to stop walking to get any rest.

It was miserable, head down and just get on with it. Plus the rocks were slippy, many of the paths were turning into streams.

I did make the right decision to stop when I did and get my tent up and get dry. Any longer and I think hypothermia would’ve been on the cards for me and I would’ve been in quite a dangerous situation.

Subjective feeling out of 10 on: Enjoyment - Fatigue - Terrain

😀Total Enjoyment: = 81% the average across the whole trail was 8 (which is high) with the lowest being 5 (day 25 - which was a shocker mainly due to the weather which was horrendous - see above).

😫Total Fatigue average: = 34% - I am so pleased with this because I am peri-menopausal and I have been suffering with some levels of fatigue, and in the past year I have been anaemic and struggling with my iron levels.

On this trail I don’t know if it just all came together, but I felt amazing. Apart from the first couple of days, but that was due to a period and I felt pretty horrendous but for the majority of the time my fatigue levels were very low especially when taking in the elevation gain and loss I was hiking each day.

I was doing some massive days in the mountains and my average fatigue level was 3. The highest it got to was a six and that was at the start, which was tough and a bit of a shock to the system and a 6 on the final day. I think there’s also a mental thing when you know you’re coming to the end of the challenge and your body starts to relax, and once you relax, your body starts going into recovery mode.

The other thing which made a massive difference on this hike was two of the supplements I was taking. I’m not a doctor. But I do want to share what I was taking.

I was taking 10 g of creatine day 5 g in the morning 5 g in the evening plus omega-3 (Zinzino) in the evening with magnesium and vitamin C. I think the biggest difference was the creatine and the omega-3’s.

Creatine for me has been a game changer and taking a 10 g dose throughout this hike. I think it’s one of the reasons that I’ve had very low fatigue levels. I’ll be interested to know your experiences with supplements while you hike.

I also take supplements because I know my diet isn’t good on the trail!

⛰️Total Ease of terrain: = 51 % some comparison to other trails I’ve walked this is smack bang in the middle. definitely nowhere near as hard as the GR20 and nowhere near as easy as the Camino Finisterre.

The terrain is mountainous and lots of it is very technical walking. Lots of rocks, boulders and this can be quite mentally draining but there are also also some incredible sections, mountain trails, mountain paths. There are a few roads on this trail maybe a few more at the start than you would expect but again they’re not massive 25K 30 K Road walking-it might be a couple of kilometres here and there. I think the longest road section I did was maybe 5K and to be honest by the time you get to this point you’re quite grateful. Because you can go pretty fast on the 5k and it’s quite nice not to have to think about your foot placement.

It was also very well signed posted, very well way-marked, very few overgrown sections, a lot of maintenance, and a lot of care. There are certain parts of the trail which have been made easier, for example steps, bridges etc

Challenges: for me I think it was the language barrier. I went for 9 days approx without having a conversation with another person apart from saying bonjour to people.

Sometimes you felt as though you were inconveniencing people when you didn’t speak French and they were getting a little pissed off with you or it certainly felt that way to me.

It’s not what I would call a very international trail. I mainly met people from France, there was a Canadian couple, 2 British girls otherwise it was pretty much all French people.

I can’t really understand why it’s not more popular because it is a stunning walk, well way-marked, regular resupply points, you can camp, stay in hotels, there are options for every budget.

The only thing I can think of is that is a pretty long trial on average people take 55 days so you really need two months out, which probably makes it harder for the majority of people to take that much time off work.

Least enjoyable sections: none really - it was all pretty spectacular. There are a few sections of road walking but they weren’t excessive and they were very infrequent.

✨Highlights: OMG there were so many incredible moments, walking past waterfalls, descending down valleys, climbing to high points, views on views on views. Wildlife - I preferred the horses to the cows. Even the cows were better behaved than the diary cows in the uk with are scary.

It is a truly spectacular trail.

It’s a hard trail but it is well worth doing to experience being surrounded by such high mountains in all directions it was truly awe inspiring and it has become one of my favourite trails. Can’t wait for you to watch the short film and vlogs.

Favourite Section: Day 14, (Stage 18) beautiful walk at the side of a river lots of switchbacks and stunning waterfalls on the way. Stopped off at Lac de Gaube for a swim, lunch and sunbath. Continued on up the valley and it just got better and better; cascades, waterfall after waterfall. Spectacular!

Cicerone Guidebook stages. Which I gave 10/10: 18, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45. I actually preferred the views and the trail towards the end heading towards the Mediterranean. I think the high Pyrenees gets a lot of the focus but don’t underestimate the beauty further along it’s a lot wilder and more remote, and yes it can definitely be more challenging trying to get resupply, but the scenery was out of this world.

❓Any questions or comments regarding the GR 10 would you take on this hike?

🙏Thanks for following along I have filmed and the vlogs will be coming out in the Tough Girl YouTube channel soon 🥳

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