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| Colin the tent looking glorious all along the GR10 |
Our trusty two-man tent, affectionately known as Colin,
is a Coleman Cobra 2. I would thoroughly recommend this make and model to any
prospective adventurers out there. It’s a well-priced tent and at 2.05 kg it’s lightweight
too. The Cobra 2 is flysheet first which makes it good for putting up in
the rain and its low profile protects it against storms and high winds. There’s
space in the small awnings for boots and bags on either side. After a few days
of setting Colin up we easily could pitch him in under 5 minutes and the take-down is even faster. In French you don't pitch a tent you plant it and every time we plant Colin the tent he blooms into the coziest cocoon. He's such a
happy little mountain home, and it's always a delight to open up the door and
see what awaits us outside every morning
Below is a list of campsites that we stayed in that are on or near the GR10. It is by no means an extensive list of everywhere we stayed because, as you can see from the photos above, we did a lot of wild camping/bivouacing and occasionally stayed in B&Bs or Gîte d'étapes for a bit of extra comfort.
Campsites/Bivouac spots near Refuges (West to East)
- Near Ainhoa: Camping Xokoan (N.B. this quite a diversion– we turned off the GR10 quite a while before Ainhoa but it was well signposted and well worth the diversion for a rest day)
- Saint-Etienne-de-Baïgorry: Camping Irouleguy
- St-Jean-pied-de-Port: there’s a very basic and very busy Camping Municipal
- Larrau: Camping Ixtila
- Saint Engrâce: Bivouacing at the gîte d'étape
- Borce: Bivouacing at the Gîte d’étape Le Communal
- Cauterets: Camping Vignemale
- Gavarnie: La Bergerie, an ‘aire naturelle’
- Luz-Saint Saveur: Camping Toy
-
Bagnères-de-Luchon: Camping des Thermes
- l'Etang d'Araing: Bivouacing at the Refuge de l'Etang d'Araing
- Sentein: Camping Municipale la Grange
- Aulus les bains: Le Coulédous
- L'Etang de Bassiès: Bivouacing near the Refuge Bassiès
- Auzat: Camping La Vernière
- Plateau de Beille: Camping in a magical Yurt complete with log burner at Angaka
- Ax-les-thermes: Camping Le Malezou
- Arles-sur-Tech: Camping du Riuferrer
Wild camping
For bivouacing advice, this website was indispensable. I copied and pasted all 4 sections of the GR10 to a pdf document that I had saved on my phone, which meant we could consult it even when there was no phone/internet signal.
Otherwise, we just used the map to pick out spots along the way that looked flat and suitable and were near a water source. Sometimes we would get there and find it to be totally unsuitable for pitching a tent - but we always earmarked a few likely spots so we always had a backup. All you need is a little patch of flat(ish) earth, after all. For more information and details about where we bivouaced/wild-camped, see the blog entries marked with the wild camping tag
Here are some other useful links about bivouacing (wild camping) on the GR10:
Otherwise, we just used the map to pick out spots along the way that looked flat and suitable and were near a water source. Sometimes we would get there and find it to be totally unsuitable for pitching a tent - but we always earmarked a few likely spots so we always had a backup. All you need is a little patch of flat(ish) earth, after all. For more information and details about where we bivouaced/wild-camped, see the blog entries marked with the wild camping tag
Here are some other useful links about bivouacing (wild camping) on the GR10:
- The rules in National Parks in the Pyrenees: http://www.parc-
pyrenees.com/nous-connaitre/ reglementation.html
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