This was one of the tracks my wife and I took during our three month walking trip of France in the middle of 2007. The gear we took was previously discussed in our gear list article, available here. A special 'feature' of this trip was the very bad weather we experienced for the first two months: it was meant to be summer but we had rain, hail and snow. Coping with this bad weather for weeks on end with ultralight gear required some skill, but we managed. Another 'feature' of the trip was the significant change in altitude almost every day. We were yo-yoing from valleys at well below 1,000 m (3,000 ft) and cols and ridges around 2,500 m (8,000 ft).
The name 'GR' stands for 'Grande Randonnée' or 'Great Walk' in France. The French have lots of them, so obviously the GR5 was created a long time ago. It runs from the resort town of Thonon-les-Bains on the Lac Léman to the city of Nice on the Mediterranean, but we missed the last bit. Instead we took a spectacular high variation called the GR52 going from a little mountain village called St. Dalmas Valdeblore to Menton on the Mediterranean. These notes will cover the GR5 section only.
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