Slow Routes
A long-distance path is laid out around a day of walking, not a distance
Waymarked routes are divided into stages by where a walker can sleep and eat, which explains almost every odd thing about how they are described.
By Clara Lindqvist3 min read
The stage is the unit, and the stage is a bed
Guides to long paths describe them in stages rather than in kilometres, and the stages are wildly uneven. One is a gentle stroll of a couple of hours, the next is a punishing haul over a ridge. This looks like poor design until you notice what determines a stage boundary: it is wherever there is somewhere to sleep.
That constraint is inherited rather than chosen. Villages, refuges and monasteries sit where they sit for reasons of water, farming and defence that have nothing to do with walkers, and a route that wants to be walkable in daily increments has to accept the spacing it finds.
So a brutal stage usually means a long gap between settlements, and a trivial one usually means two villages close together with a hard section on either side. Reading the stage list as a map of accommodation rather than as a training plan makes the whole thing legible.
Waymarking is a language with local dialects
On the ground a route is a series of painted marks, and the marks follow national conventions rather than an international one. In France, Spain, Belgium and several neighbouring countries the long-distance network uses a horizontal red and white flash; other countries use their own colours, shapes and numbering schemes entirely.
The convention that matters most is the one for a wrong turn. In most systems a mark with a cross through it, or two marks arranged to point away, means you have left the route, and noticing that symbol quickly saves more time than any amount of map reading.
Marks are painted by whoever maintains the path, which is often a volunteer association rather than a state body. That is why density varies so much: a well-loved section is marked every fifty metres and a neglected one leaves you guessing at a junction in a forest.
Accommodation spacing decides what kind of trip it is
Where the beds are simple and numerous — pilgrim hostels, mountain refuges, village guesthouses — the path can be walked without carrying camping equipment, and the pack drops to something a person can manage all day. Where they are sparse, the walk becomes an expedition with a tent in it, and the character changes completely.
That single fact drives the crowding too. A stage that ends at a settlement with forty beds cannot absorb more than forty walkers a night, which is why popular routes in season turn into a slightly anxious race for the next bunk. On less-walked paths the constraint runs the other way and the problem is finding anything open at all.
Booking ahead solves the anxiety and removes the flexibility, which is the whole appeal of walking for many people. There is no correct answer here. It depends on whether you would rather be certain of a bed or free to stop when your knees say so.
The path exists because somebody keeps arranging for it to
A waymarked route across private land is a negotiated thing. Rights of way, permissive agreements, forestry access and agricultural cycles all constrain where the line can go, and any of them can change. When a landowner withdraws permission or a bridge fails, the route is rerouted, sometimes onto tarmac, sometimes for years.
This is why the printed guide and the ground disagree so often, and why the disagreement is usually the guide being out of date rather than the walker being lost. The maintaining association is the authority on the current line, and its own notices are worth more than any book.
It also explains the occasional dull road section that seems inexplicable in an otherwise beautiful route. Somebody could not obtain permission for the obvious line, and the alternative was a verge.
What actually needs planning, and what does not
Distance is the least useful number. Ascent, surface and exposure decide how long a day takes, and a walker who plans by kilometres alone will be badly wrong on the first mountain stage and mildly bored on the first valley one.
Water and resupply are the things worth genuine attention, because they are the two failures that end a day early. Knowing where the last shop before a long empty section is, and whether the fountain marked on a map runs in late summer, is more valuable than any amount of gear optimisation.
Everything else can be decided as you go, and the pleasure of these routes is largely that it can. A path with a beginning, an end and a reliable line of paint between them removes almost all of the daily decision-making that travel normally demands, which is a strange kind of luxury.
Common questions
Do I need to walk the whole route to have done it properly?
There is no authority on this, though pilgrimage routes with a certificate at the end sometimes set a minimum distance for it. Most people walk sections across several years, and the paths are designed to make that easy by crossing public transport regularly.
How do I know if a route is waymarked well enough to follow without a map?
Assume it is not. Even excellent waymarking fails in fog, in forestry operations, after storms and where vandalism is common, and the sections where you most need a mark are the ones where paint has least to stick to. Carry the map you would want if the paint stopped.
Is walking a long path cheaper than ordinary travel?
Usually per day, since simple accommodation and self-catered food cost little, but it takes far more days to cover the same ground. Whether the total is lower depends entirely on how long you are out, and on whether you would otherwise have been paying rent at home anyway.
Staff writer, The Next Postcard
Clara joined to cover cities, slow routes, rail & road and stayed for the awkward questions and reads the small print so you do not have to.
