Corsica: Part I

In my experience, there are two types of travel- Well planned, well thought out ideas that take time to organize, and last minute hair on fire planning. With Corsica, it has been the former.

During my time in the military, I have met a wide range of friends. Some who have become like family, and others who have entered my life for a short time to either guide me through a rough patch, or keep me company during an assignment. Regardless of how long they are in my life, everyone I have met has changed me in some way or another. For those of you who have never served in the military, it is hard to explain the type of friendships that are created. The people we meet become such an integral part of our live. Not only because we share the certain level of “suck” that the military provides, but due to the fact that a time may arise that you would have to trust that person with your life while being responsible for theirs.

There are a handful of people that I met in flight school nine years ago that have continued to be in my life, even though we have never been stationed together since. One of these friends is Tania. We were in the same Basic Combat Skills (BCS) class learning navigation, night vision goggles, and strip poker (ok- that is a whole other flight school story), as well as the AH-64D Apache course. Four years later, she helped take care of me after I tore my ACL and fractured my tibia while playing ultimate Frisbee (I am still hanging my head in shame for this one) during the Captains Career Course.  I remember a week after my surgery with staples still in place, being guided through an airport in a wheelchair trying to make a flight to DC for her wedding. She could have spent the night before her wedding with anyone in the world, but she chose to spend it with a cripple, drinking Dom Perignon champagne and watching “Twilight.”

This past New Year, Tania wrote and told me that she would be in Mons, Belgium celebrating the holidays with her brother who was stationed there. I hadn’t seen her in years, so I decided to take a day trip out to Belgium with my parents in tow to ring in the New Year with her. After an ungodly amount of Belgian beer (sorry German friends, but I will fully admit that Belgian beer is the greatest beer on the planet) we started talking about taking a trip together.

While I was in Afghanistan, I spent a lot of time dreaming of open spaces. Being cramped up for so long, I felt that I needed to escape to a place where I could run for miles and not see anything but untouched landscapes. It was during this time that I began to plan for my trip to Iceland and Corsica.  I had been attempting to teach myself French (not the easiest thing to do) and was listening to lessons I downloaded from audible.com. There was one particular lesson on past tense where two people in the lesson met at a train station and were talking about where they were coming from. The man in the story mentioned that he was just getting back from two weeks in Corsica where he had hiked the GR20. I had no idea what this was, so I went on Wikipedia that night at work. What I found blew my mind.

The GR20 is a trail that crosses the island of Corsica from north to south through the mountains. The trail is about 190 km long, and it takes about 15 days to traverse and is said to be one of the toughest trails in Europe. There are refuges along the way where you can either rent a bunk, or pitch a tent if you brought one. There are showers and some food provided at these refuges. I began to google photos of the trail and decided that very night that I wanted to do it. I went on amazon.com and ordered “GR20: Corsica: The High-level route” by Paddy Dillon.

I mentioned the GR20 to Tania and she immediately agreed to go. We talked a little about it that night, and continued to talk about it through March until we finally set dates for the trip. Because of the nature of this particular adventure, I will be writing about it in sections to include tickets, travel, packing lists, etc. Our trip is scheduled from 6-27 August 2014. We will meet at the Ajaccio airport (she is flying in from the US) and make our way up to Calvi where the trail begins. We will attempt to traverse the entire trail, ending in Conza and we plan to spend four days at the end recovering on the beach.

We are two months out, and I have yet to strap on my hiking boots or wear my brand new REI rucksack. This should be slightly entertaining… I am also curious to see how we each react to the course based on our different fitness levels:  she is a marathon runner, and I am a CrossFit athlete.  I am already getting pumped up for this trip!!