Solo es Andar. We interviewed Sergi Latorre.

The GR11 is a trail of more than 800 km that crosses the Pyrenees from Cape Higuer, in the Cantabrian Sea, to Cap de Creus, in the Mediterranean. A wonderful trek that National Geographic included in 2015 in its list of the eight most attractive trails in the world, a sporting challenge if you will, but above all, a dream.

One of these dreamers is Sergi Latorre (Reus, 1976). Sergi completed the entire journey in one go in the summer of 2021, although he actually started it much earlier. The idea had been in his head for 30 years.

From that great adventure, Sergi gives us this book written with great love for the Pyrenees and mountaineering. A sincere, entertaining and fun book. A sort of unofficial guide to the Trans-Pyrenees, essential for all those who have ever done it or dream of doing it.

Hello Sergi,

How are you doing? First of all, thank you for writing "Solo es andar: La transpirenaica desde el Cantábrico hasta el Mediterráneo". I had already told you in an email we exchanged some time ago, but I really enjoyed reading the book.

Hello, Enrique, and thank you for your words. I'm very glad you enjoyed my book.

800 km, 45 days... crossing the Pyrenees from sea to sea is just walking?

It's quite a beating to begin with, hahaha! As I say at the beginning of the book, "it's just walking" was a sort of mantra or powerful idea, a resource I found to encourage me when I still had doubts about whether I would be able to do the whole Trans-Pyrenees in one go. Except for a few climbs and the odd chain crossing, the GR11 has no technical difficulties beyond the kilometres and the difference in altitude (which is no small thing!), which is why "it's just walking". Of course, as an adventure and vital experience it is much, much more.

However, I would like to add that it is not technically difficult as long as you have mountaineering experience, of course, and I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt thinking it's a walk!

In the book you always refer to your trans-Pyrenean route, what do you mean?

There are many ways to do the Trans-Pyrenees Crossing. Along the way I met many mountaineers who were also doing it, but while some of us tried to do it in its entirety, others, due to lack of time, did it in sections when they could. Others of us tried to be independent and avoid shelters or hostels as much as possible, bivouacking or camping when we could, which carried a lot of weight in our backpacks, while others hardly carried any weight but spent a lot of money on sleeping and eating. Then there were people who did it running, others without haste... And as someone said, the same landscape is different depending on the eyes that contemplate it, so it could be said that there are as many trans-Pyrenees as there are mountaineers who do it. The one I describe in the book was mine, but there are many more. 

Why did you decide to go alone?

Well, I really enjoy going to the mountains or travelling with people I love, it is very nice to share this kind of experience, but I also really enjoy travelling or going to meet nature on my own. As solo travellers and mountaineers know, the experience is very different and, as a rule, more intense. And then there is the advantage of being able to make decisions, sometimes difficult and even more so on such a long journey, with total freedom and independence and without conditioning or being conditioned by anyone. But as solo travellers also know, when you travel alone you meet a lot more people, and that happened on my Transpirenaica. In fact I ended up walking many stages with other mountaineers who are now great friends, so technically I started it alone but I was often in very good company.

Not only did you make the decision to go alone, but you also dispensed with some luxuries such as sleeping in hotels and bivouacking like a criminal.

Yes, I'm a bit of a delinquent, you got me, hahaha. The idea of doing without luxuries has to do not only with the economy, but also with the mountaineering philosophy known as ultra light, based on minimalism to carry only the essentials, saving a lot of weight in the backpack. It also has to do with a certain conception, romantic perhaps, punk as some call it, of trying to be as independent as possible when facing an adventure like this, of getting my life together without resorting to a credit card. I did sleep in sheltered refuges from time to time, I took advantage when I passed through natural parks where camping or bivouacking was forbidden, and my back was very grateful, after so many nights sleeping on the ground, for a mattress. But in general I tried to bivouac in the open when the weather was good, to take advantage of free shelters, frontons in the villages of Navarre, the porches of village churches, etcetera. Even, once, the wooden castle of a children's playground where I slept wonderfully, in fact.

Moving on, you were born in Reusyou have ancestry in Benasque, you've known the Pyrenees since you were a child, you're of a certain age... I mean, you've seen the changes. Two different questions, or not so different, what do you think about the commercialisation of the mountains and the increasing overcrowding of certain areas? 

I think it is terrible. As you say, I have known the Pyrenees since I was a child and I have seen how, in recent years, the mountain has become overcrowded and beautiful places that used to be a mountaineer's secret now look like the Ramblas in Barcelona. I don't know the causes, I suppose that social networks have had something to do with it, as well as the efforts of public administrations to make accessible places that were not accessible before, which allowed them to be preserved unaltered, thanks to the income generated by tourism and charging for what was free before. The refuges now look like hotels with TripAdvisor ratings, prices have skyrocketed, and they are trying to turn rangers into waiters when they have always been something else. Everyone has the right to enjoy the mountains, and after all I am part of that mass and I am part of the problem, but I think that the main problem, a consequence of this overcrowding, is the degradation of the environment due to the lack of mountain or ecological culture of many of these people. It is a fact that some of the most beautiful areas of the Pyrenees are the most overcrowded and, to nobody's surprise, they are the places where you find the most rubbish and the most degraded environment. This is tragic. Some friends have pointed out to me, not without reason, that with my book I contribute to this overcrowding, that I can take even more people to these places, but I fear that my book will take far fewer people to the mountains than the photo of some influencer on Instagram, and I would like to think that my book is also a manifesto of this mountain culture and that none of my readers will throw a single piece of paper on the ground, that they will appreciate and respect this environment.

On the other hand, this lack of culture and, therefore, of experience in the mountains, has also led, I was told by the refuge wardens themselves, to an increase in accidents and rescues in recent years.

I totally agree, does the mountain make us better people? Like the pandemic, haha.

Hahaha. Well, I wouldn't say so, and I'm afraid that there are good people and bad people everywhere, but I am convinced that everywhere there are more good people than bad, and it is possible that, in the mountains, the percentage of good people is higher than in other places. Perhaps because in order to encounter nature and the landscape through effort, a certain romantic and adventurous spirit is presupposed, "conquerors of the useless" as Lionel Terray sublimely defined it, perhaps because among mountaineers, almost without exception, there is always a certain solidarity and sympathy for sharing a passion and some difficulties, perhaps because the mountain teaches us that we are all equally insignificant and that it rules but we all, without exception, love it, I don't know. But in my specific case, as a general rule, in the mountains I more often meet good people than bad ones. 

Yes, I suppose there's something about the mountains that brings out the best in everyone. You are a well-travelled person, you've seen a lot of the world, you've written books about it, but in the end, like Kylian Jornet (hehe), you find your great adventure at home in the Pyrenees. The dream of your youth.

I still can't explain KylianJornet's Trans-Pyrenees in eight days, hahaha!

Yes, the Trans-Pyrenees Crossing was an old dream of my youth and "dream" was one of the words I heard most often from other mountaineers when they talked about the Trans-Pyrenees Crossing. I am convinced that every mountaineer, knowing that there is a road that crosses the Pyrenees from one end to the other, has thought that he or she would like to do it one day. On the other hand, ever since my parents took me and my brothers and sisters there as children, the Pyrenees have been a very special, magical place for me. As for what you say about finding a great adventure at home, something I have learnt from travelling is that, almost always, the adventure does not depend on the "where" but on the "how". In this regard, in the book I give the example of a friend who cycled through Thailand for six months. I, for lack of time, cycled through Thailand in one month, and although both experiences were beautiful journeys, my friend's and mine are barely comparable. His trip was much more adventurous, of course.

What do you take from the GR11?

Phew. There are so many things I'd like to remember. Of course I would say the landscapes, the beauty of so many places, I could also say the great people I met, both mountaineers and villagers or refuge guards, but to highlight something unique about the Trans-Pyrenees Crossing, not common to any other mountain experience like the ones I have mentioned, I would say that I would say that I would say the fact of spending so much time living in the mountains. I have done other mountain crossings, but the longest so far was ten days, most of them four or five stages. But so many days calculating kilometres and gradients, those of the day and those of the following days, thinking about where I would find water or shelter, watching the sky to see if the storm would move away or fall on me, day after day for a month and a half, almost two... That is a unique experience that I have only lived on the GR11.

At this time of year there must be quite a few people preparing for the GR11. Any advice?

Don't let them sleep near bells! Seriously now, a resource that worked very well for me to avoid being overwhelmed with so many kilometres and so much effort, was to divide the crossing into geographical zones: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia 1, Andorra and Catalonia 2. When I started I concentrated on crossing the Navarre Pyrenees, ignoring the rest, a relatively simple crossing of between eight and ten stages; when I got to Aragon I thought only of crossing the Aragonese Pyrenees, as if I were on a fortnight's holiday, and the same thing when I got to Catalonia. When I arrived in Andorra, yes, there I had the luxury of thinking that the Trans-Pyrenees Crossing was almost mine. But dividing such a long journey into manageable chunks makes it easier to tackle it, at least for me.

And well, I also advise you to read my book, hahaha!

Finally, what is the little voice whispering to you now?

The little voice has been whispering two names to me for some time now: trekking in Nepal and Mexico. Let's see if there's any luck and I can listen to her soon.