Hiking the GR1 - Stages 6 and 7

An epic misadventure spread across two days.  We hiked 30 km, gained 1700 m of altitude and battled the onslaught of Cyclone Solo to conquer Stages 6 and 7 of the GR1.  Click above for picture album.  Geotracks here: (gpx) (kmz)

Kincso has been accepted, and likely will attend, U Cal Berkeley in the fall.  She leaves New Caledonia in less than a month.  We still had four sections of the GR1 to complete.  This weekend was the one penciled in to complete the final two legs (we'll fill in the skipped legs later) and we had my friend Paul along for the adventure.  Due to the remoteness and difficulty of access, you really need to do these two legs consecutively with an overnight at one of the refuges high up in the mountains.  There was news of a forming tropical storm (which became Cyclone Solo) but we apparently misread when it would strike New Caledonia, thinking we had until Sunday evening before the rains would hit.  We were wrong about that.

Ildiko dropped Kincso and me at a meeting point where Paul, his wife and sister picked us up and we headed for the Parc de la Riviere Bleu.  Once there we drove to the furthest point - Pont Perignon - where a park ranger took us deeper into the park to the start of Stage 6.  We hiked about 8.5 hours on Day 1, mostly through thick rain forest and relentlessly uphill for the second half of the day.  Many rivers were crossed and we had some soakings and Kincso got a nasty cut crossing a particularly slippery set of rocks.  We didn't make it to the end of Stage 6 - which was 15+  km but there was a smaller shelter at the 13 km stage and we spent the night there.  The A frame huts proved to be a huge benefit because the rains arrived shortly after we got there.  There was just enough firewood to warm a sandwich and some chicken bouillon.  We were inside by 7 pm and out of the torrential rains that fell all night long.  Upon waking, the scene outside was surreal.  Standing water everywhere and steady heavy rain.  Nothing we had was dry.  

We faced the final 3.7 km of Stage 6 - all uphill - to get to the start of Stage 7, which itself was a 15 km hike mostly downhill back to Dumbea.  The effect of the rain on the paths, the footing, the rivers, the red mud roads at the end - words can't do it justice.  This was without a doubt the toughest two day hike I have ever done, and Paul and Kincso concur.  Kudos to Kincso for persevering, and learning what amazing inner strength she has - and to Paul who was a positive force and morale booster the whole time.  Our pictures (link to full album at picture above) may not have captured the surrealist aspect of the whole hike: we went to great lengths to protect our electronics from the biblical rains and simply could not risk taking them out at times.  But hopefully we captured enough to paint a picture.  These two stages of the GR1 are in another league relative to the other stages, and we are all thrilled to have finished them off, likely never to be repeated.

We did place two more geocaches as we've done for each leg (linked here and here).  The final kicker to the whole hike was that the good park folks CLOSED the car park access where Ildiko was to  pick us up, and so just when we thought the whole ordeal was over ... we had to hike two more km out the access road to get back to the closed gate, thus extending the Day 2 hike to a full 10 hours done completely in totally wet cold clothing and footwear.  Good times.  How soon can we complete the other legs?