[Gocamino] Where to begin

[Eldor Pederson]

I must respectfully disagree most strongly with those who argue that Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port is the best starting point for a walk on the Camino. It is a particularly poor choice of starting point, especially for North Americans. With a few exceptions, North Americans arrive in France after an overnight flight and a long day spent in trains or busses from Paris or long waits at airports for connecting flights to Biarritz, jet lagged and out-of-condition after 2-3 days of enforced idleness. Even the best athletes among them are out of condition for the steep and intimidating climb. No good athlete attempts her or his most difficult activity without adequate warm-up, and the same logic applies to long distance walkers. Putting the most difficult single day of walking at the very beginning of the trek is ill-advised in any long distance walk. Several peregrinos in my acquaintance have abandoned the walk thinking that the entire Camino will be as difficult as that first day out of St. Jean, not realizing that much of the remaining way is over gently undulating country with only a few steep climbs, and none of them as much as the 1,000 meters one needs to gain between St. Jean and the top of the pass on the Route Napoleon. While the routes over the Montes de León or later Pedrifita/O Cebreiro are also challenging, they do not seem very difficult for pilgrims who have been walking for days or weeks and are in a condition to match the challenge. Such is not the case starting at St. Jean, and while the town is attractive and the nearby scenery is pretty, the walk to Roncesvalles is simply too taxing for the first day and yields far too few benefits for the difficulty. Stopping at Huntto is an option, but that merely cuts a few kms of walking and a few meters of climbing from the second's day's trek

 

If one wants to walk the Camino Francés, then I strongly recommend starting at Pamplona, or taking a taxi or bus from there and starting at Roncesvalles. Spaniards who start at Roncesvalles consider themselves to "have done the entire Camino." If one is insistent on crossing the Pyrenees, then backtrack and begin somewhere in France requiring 2-3 days walking on GR 65 before reaching St. Jean in order to get in a little conditioning before attempting the climb.

 

Having started both at St. Jean and at Somport, my personal preference is to begin at Somport and walk the Camino Aragonese through Jaca to Puente la Reina. In Aragon the Pyrenees are impressive mountains, and the route is far less popular and thus gives one a great sense of solitude amidst stunning scenery. Starting at Somport makes the first day entirely downhill on a fairly well-graded path, a good way to begin. A few days later on the Camino Aragonese one is forced to do a fairly steep climb of about 500 meters between Ruesta and Undues, but it is no big deal because one is in condition. Attempting steep and long climbs when one is out of condition is an invitation to accident and injury, and it is most discouraging when one is at the beginning of a month of walking. Making the climb between St. Jean and Roncesvalles as the first day on the Camino is ill-advised, indeed it is a foolish choice.



E. O. Pederson

Seattle, WA