How the GR11 Trans-Pyrenean Trek Was Recorded

When TreckView was born, the idea was to give the mountaineering community a way to get to know the terrain before setting foot on it: explore a route, familiarise themselves with its key sections and access useful information to help prepare for the outing. The 360° panoramic tunnel was a fundamental part of that idea, but it was not the only one. The images, the route track and all the other information had to come together as a coherent whole, bringing the real mountain experience closer to those who were still getting their rucksacks ready.

Taking all of this to a route like the GR11 Trans-Pyrenean Trail was another story altogether.

More than 800 kilometres of the Pyrenees, 43 stages and over 15,500 spherical photographs would eventually come together to create a continuous 360° record of the entire Trans-Pyrenean Trail, from start to finish. Making it happen required two summers of fieldwork, several changes of strategy, an injury, thunderstorms, technical problems, getting lost and, once the image capture was complete, more than a year of post-production.

But when it all began, none of this was planned.

As was so often the case with TreckView, the GR11 came about almost by chance. And I say almost because sometimes the next step only reveals itself once you dare to take the one before it.

If you’ve read the article about the genesis of TreckView, you’ll know that the project had a rather unusual beginning. You’d think that, with years of experience under your belt, you’d learn to recognise the easiest way forward and know when it’s best to avoid rough ground or pushing your way through the undergrowth. Apparently, I hadn’t.

The project had reached something of a technical sweet spot. The capture methodology, the processing workflow and the integration of the entire information architecture behind each route had all been defined, tested and systematised. The website already covered several sporting disciplines, each with a handful of sample routes.

But something wasn’t quite working. The project had very little visibility. And it wasn’t for lack of content or communication. I maintained a fairly steady presence on social media, had sent press releases to specialist publications, technology media, mountaineering federations and clubs (with limited success, to be honest), wore branded technical clothing while recording routes, and explained the project to anyone who saw me out there with the camera. I was doing pretty much everything possible to build visibility organically.

For whatever reason, it just wouldn’t take off. So I thought I needed to do something different. Perhaps recording a legendary route such as Aconcagua, or taking the technology above 7,000 metres on a peak like Lenin Peak, might do the trick. But the problem was always the same: there was no way to fund such expeditions. Running a project single-handedly and financing it out of my own pocket was a serious limitation.

I was still crossing off unattainable ideas from my list of options when the phone rang. It was Albert, a Catalan friend and a mountaineer of the old school. He told me he was planning to hike the Trans-Pyrenean Trail self-sufficiently, starting at Higer and finishing at Cap de Creus, walking every single day without exception. In one continuous push. He asked if I fancied joining him.

I had just finished a phase of my working life and had the summer free. The plan was to stick to the official stages, except for the occasional day when we’d double up. All told, around 43 days on the trail, with departure just ten days away.

It sounded appealing, but then an idea struck me: what if I recorded it? Albert had his own project, and I had mine. I told him that my priority would be to record while staying safe, since I’d literally be walking around with a lightning rod over my head. That said, if I had to stop recording because a weather front was moving in and I needed to stay out of the mountains for two or three days, I wouldn’t expect him to put his trek on hold for me. We’d meet up again somewhere in Catalonia. We’d set off together, and then time would tell (quite literally, as it turned out).

A few days later, Albert arrived. It was time to check the trail conditions and go over the plan, the equipment we would need to carry and the recording gear. I won’t go into all the considerations involved in choosing the right clothing, equipment and other essentials, but I did have to find a way to fit everything into a narrow mountaineering rucksack with no side pockets, while keeping the whole setup fully functional. Yes, that very same rucksack… the one at the centre of the incident that gave birth to TreckView was also destined to help record the GR11 Trans-Pyrenean Trail.

Once I’d solved the puzzle, I closed the rucksack and hoisted it onto my shoulders to see how it felt. I’d be lying if I said my mind was instantly transported to the high meadows of Ordesa. This was more like a headlong descent into the seventh circle of Dante’s Inferno. Terrifying. Something was wrong. I brought the scales over to the rucksack and began to understand why: 23 kg in a rucksack that should have been retired long ago.

We came up with the idea of loading all my gear into Albert’s brand-new rucksack to see, in a way, how rucksacks had evolved in terms of technology and ergonomics. The weight was still 23 kg, but the difference in how the load felt was undeniable: weight distribution, the way the pack moulded itself to the body, the pressure it placed on it… even freedom of movement and agility on the trail had changed. And not by a little.

It was too late to buy a new rucksack and make the necessary modifications to carry the recording equipment. So this would be the old pack’s last great journey, after nearly 20 years as my inseparable companion in the mountains. It would receive a Viking funeral at Cap de Creus, with full honours.

I won’t deny that the start of the trail left me with mixed feelings. Part of me was happy to be embarking on what promised to be an exciting journey. On the other hand, the excessive weight of my rucksack and its poor ergonomics made progress far less comfortable than I had expected. On top of that, with COVID restrictions still in place, we had to pass through populated areas wearing face masks, making every breath feel heavier than the last.

It didn’t take me long to realise that recording the trail was going to be a challenge. Things started to go wrong almost as soon as we left Irún and entered the first forest. The low-hanging branches meant that every few minutes I had to bow under the weight of my rucksack, almost in a genuflection, to stop the pole and camera from hitting the branches or getting caught in them. This slowed our progress and made every step more physically demanding. So there was a new rule to add to the procedure manual: whenever there was a risk of catching the pole or camera on a branch, I had to walk all the way around the tree or move the branch out of the way. If neither was possible, I’d have to duck.

This wouldn’t have been quite so troublesome if the initial stages had been designed to allow for gradual acclimatisation. Unfortunately, where I come from, we can’t design routes with big elevation gains concentrated into one or two steep climbs, so we make them long and winding instead, with the sort of relentless ups and downs that leave your legs feeling like lead.

Another problem was the steep slopes on bare earth or grassy ground, where the concept of zigzagging seems largely unknown around these parts. Since my camera has no stabiliser, I have to walk as upright as possible to keep the horizon error to a minimum. But there’s only so much you can do with your ankles when tackling slopes without steps or footholds. Beyond a certain gradient, the technique becomes more like front-pointing with crampons than walking in any conventional sense.

As you can imagine, the initial stages give your upper body no respite. It has to keep adjusting the position of your hips, pelvis and spine, while your legs steadily accumulate fatigue.

On top of all those adjustments, I often had to bend my torso to a 90-degree angle under the weight of a rucksack loaded with more than 20 kg. So, in the end, what usually happens in these circumstances happened to me. By the end of the fourth stage, a searing pain had taken hold of my back around Menditxuri. I had to make the entire descent to Auritz, stopping every three minutes to stretch my back, tears streaming down my face as I sank to the ground.

My plan to record the entire GR11 in one continuous push, carrying everything I needed, came to an abrupt end right there. I called home, and within a couple of hours my partner had come to the rescue. Albert and I said goodbye, but agreed that if I recovered, I would rejoin him wherever he happened to be so we could continue the journey together. I had no idea how or when that might happen, or even whether it would be possible at all.

The journey home was painful, both physically and emotionally. Every bump in the road sent pressure through my back, as did every sway of the car around a bend. And it hurt to leave the Pyrenees behind, to have to give up so soon because of an injury. Well, these things happen in the mountains, and there’s nothing for it but to grin and bear it.

My situation had now changed. My short-term goal was to find out the extent of the injury and what recovery would involve. I called my favourite mechanic. If anyone could work some kind of miracle on my back, it was him. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so, and after I explained what had happened, he saw me straight away.

I arrived at his practice and, as always, he opened the door with a smile. It took all of two seconds for his expression to change completely.

—Ze in dek? (What have you done?) he asked. I could see pity in his eyes.

—Txikitu… (Wrecked myself…) I replied bitterly.

At that very moment, I knew I wasn’t dealing with a minor injury.

I lay down on the treatment table and he began manipulating my body, checking my alignment and, as he jokingly puts it, taking a plumb line to me. Apparently, my skeleton was completely twisted and out of alignment. Once he’d got things back into place, he turned his attention to my back.

—Nola ikustek bizkarra? (How does my back look?)

—Aldebiko dorsalgia eta ornoren bat ikuttuta. (Bilateral back pain, with a couple of vertebrae affected.)

Well, at least I had a diagnosis. Now came the million-dollar question… I needed to know whether I’d be able to rejoin the GR11 or not. He explained that everything depended on how well my back responded to rehabilitation, but that, as a professional, he could recommend nothing other than rest. He gave me the first treatment session there and then, a long and painful one. I needed a few days’ respite before putting myself to the test in the field: a trip to Irumugarrieta with no load on my back, followed by a return for a second intensive session.

Recovery seemed to be going well. The climb had caused little discomfort, but on the descent my back began to tighten up and the pain returned, although less intensely than it had on the GR11.

During the second session, he told me that, surprisingly, my back was responding better than expected and that a return to the GR11 might be possible, provided I met certain conditions. It all hinged on one final field test, and this one was no walk in the park: climbing Beriain from Unanu with around 5 kg on my back, and pushing hard.

The discomfort returned, but I managed to keep it at bay until I reached the forest track, just a few minutes from the car.

The conditions for rejoining the GR11 were simple, but non-negotiable: carry no more than 6 kg; take anti-inflammatory medication only if I was in pain at the end of a stage; and if the pain persisted the following morning after taking it, I’d be heading straight home, no arguments.

It was clear that I needed a new approach if I was to rejoin Albert and carry on recording the GR11. I couldn’t do it alone, carrying everything I needed. I would need help, and plenty of it.

Fortunately, I have a family I really don’t deserve. My partner, her parents and mine put together a support plan, dividing up the remainder of the route into shifts. They would take care of moving the camps from one place to another and making sure I had food supplies at the beginning and end of each day. All I would have to do was record the trail, section by section, carrying only what I needed for the day.

Pure bliss. I was back in business.

I called Albert to give him the news, and he told me he was in Bujaruelo. My favourite mechanic, wisely, pointed out that rejoining the trail before the Collado de Añisclo would undoubtedly mean a trip into the mountains and straight back to the treatment table.

Better to rejoin him at Pineta… I thought.

We set off together again. At first, it felt strange. I was travelling light, while Albert was carrying his huge self-sufficient trekking pack. I was practically starting from scratch physically, whereas he was fully adapted to the trail: he never eased off on the climbs, never seemed short of breath, and the days spent alone hadn’t dulled his characteristic, legendary sense of humour, equal parts absurd and mischievous… On a trail like this, boredom simply isn’t an option.

I found myself thinking back to one of our first conversations, while we were packing our rucksacks at my place. Albert had already completed the GR11 in stages, and he explained that sooner or later injuries and wounds would come along, some more serious than others, and that the hardest part mentally was learning to live with the pain while walking. I can vouch for the fact that he was right.

At the start of the trail, I had just one psychological challenge to contend with: staying focused at all times to make sure the recording went smoothly. I had to anticipate the route ahead, avoid swaying and oscillations, ensure that the camera and equipment remained in perfect working order, carry out regular checks, clean the lenses… Now a back injury had been added to the equation, one that could jeopardise everything else.

Humour, along with all the rambling and flights of fancy, would become the best therapy. After all, the trip was already shaping up like the beginning of a bad joke: a Basque bloke and a Catalan bloke walk into the Pyrenees… You couldn’t write a better punchline.

As far as the recording was concerned, every day began in much the same way. The first task was always to mount the camera on the pole, which was originally telescopic. By the second stage, it had started failing spectacularly: the locking mechanisms that held the telescopic sections in their fully extended position kept slipping due to prolonged vibration, preventing the camera from staying in the right position. Nothing a drill, a handful of screws and some wing nuts couldn’t fix. I would discover later that this fixed-length arrangement would bring its own set of problems.

Back to the job at hand. Once the camera was in place and the electronics needed to operate it were connected, we had to level it manually, the old-fashioned way. In other words, while I stood upright, someone had to make sure the camera was securely mounted and level in every direction, using an omnidirectional spirit level and checking that the lenses were pointing where they should.

Every two or three hours, we took a short break. We tried to take our boots off and, if possible, soak our feet. We kept a close eye out for blisters, chafing and any other kind of wound, treating them as necessary to stop them getting worse. During these breaks, I also carried out the necessary checks on the recording equipment.

If there’s one thing you need to know before getting yourself into this kind of undertaking, it’s that any wound you pick up will stay with you for a long time, and so will the pain it causes. You may even find yourself wondering whether a wound has stopped hurting, whether your brain has simply switched off the pain receptors, or whether it’s true that one pain can mask another. You won’t see that on Instagram.

Making the most of every spring was another constant. Every opportunity to drink and refill our water bottles was seized.

If there’s one thing that causes real suffering, it’s thirst. But the uncertainty of not knowing whether you’ll be able to replenish your water along the way can be crushing. Needless to say, when the heat was relentless, dunking your head in the water or soaking your cap was practically compulsory.

Once we were on the move and the routine had become second nature, we kept our minds occupied. About once an hour, we checked how clean the lenses were and how much battery power we had left, while I checked the app to make sure the camera was still recording. The rest of the time, we filled with conversations about all sorts of things, although they invariably drifted towards increasingly absurd humour. Judging by the looks on the faces of our family and friends waiting for us at the end of each stage, the deterioration must have been severe.

As the days went by, we began to realise that we were getting stronger. During the first three hours, we made ridiculously fast progress, considering that Albert was carrying his enormous trekking pack and I was still dealing with my back injury. It wasn’t excruciatingly painful, but it kept reminding me it was there whenever one of my feet struck the ground with a little more force than usual.

Yes, we were getting stronger, but temperature had a lot to do with our initial pace. During the middle hours of the day, with the sun beating down relentlessly, our pace was a different story. Whether it was the accumulated exertion, the rising temperature, the need to manage our energy, or a combination of all three, the fact was that we were fully aware of this pattern and eventually planned our breaks around it.

From the time I rejoined Albert at Pineta, there was little worth mentioning about the recording until the stage that ended at Cap de Llauset.

Something strange happened during our break at Ibón Bajo de Vallibierna, also referred to in some sources as Ibón Bajo de Ballibierna. While checking the recording equipment, I realised that the external battery had run completely flat and the camera was running on its internal battery. I connected a fresh external battery, but no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get it to supply power to the camera. Meanwhile, the battery that was still working was being drained at an alarming rate. Before we reached the boulder field leading up to Coll de Vallibierna, the power ran out.

Fortunately, I was carrying a spare internal battery. I swapped it in and we started crossing the boulder field. It wasn’t long before I checked the power levels again, and things weren’t looking good: consumption was through the roof. If I wanted to reach Llauset with the recording intact, I had no choice but to pick up the pace. Albert agreed with my assessment, but with that much weight on his back, he couldn’t move any faster across the boulders. We would have to meet at the destination.

I reached the refuge just in the nick of time. I had saved the recording.

Or so I thought at the time. In reality, not a single image had been recorded from the boulder field onwards, and I had to return the following summer to capture the missing section.

One thing worth highlighting about Llauset, alongside the refuge’s facilities, was the kindness of the people running it. They didn’t hesitate for a moment to let us plug all the recording equipment’s batteries into the mains, and they kept an eye on our gear while everything charged. It might seem like a small gesture, a trivial favour, something you’d take for granted. But it wasn’t. Without their help, we wouldn’t have been able to record the following day either, and that stage would have joined the list of sections we had to repeat the next summer.

Thank you, Refugio de Cap de Llauset! And the same goes for Refugio de la Restanca, where we received the same warm welcome.

There’s no denying that recording the GR11 Trans-Pyrenean Trail in the way we did has an element of epic adventure about it: perseverance, obstacles overcome and a constant mental battle. There’s some truth in all that, of course, but every story has another side, with its own nuances and complexities.

It’s certainly a route that demands a great deal mentally, but waking up and finishing the day somewhere your family and friends are waiting for you, with everything taken care of, makes a world of difference. Without them, the whole undertaking would have been much harder.

Nor should we forget that we’re talking about high mountains. We can agree that there are more exposed, more inhospitable places, with harsher conditions, but up here things can go wrong in the blink of an eye, and in the most unexpected ways.

Personally, I have a deep aversion to the military language often used in mountaineering. From my point of view, mountains are not territory to be conquered. There is no fight on equal terms, nothing to lay siege to. I understand the mountains through love and respect, just as the people whose stories have accompanied me for many years have done: from my parents to the old-school mountaineering clubs I’ve belonged to, and including the books and talks of climbers such as Juanjo, Otxoa, Iñurra, Portilla, García Pascual, Medinabeitia, Zabalza, Lazkano and Segarra, to name just a few. They are role models to me, not because of their achievements, but because of their philosophy and values.

From that perspective of humility, I can speak quite openly about the moments when I was genuinely afraid, and about how I did not face that fear with the courage and daring of those who lay siege to the mountains.

I’m talking about thunderstorms. We were caught out by three memorable ones during the trek. The first struck near Coll de Tudela. The forecast hadn’t predicted thunderstorms until well into the afternoon, but the weather front decided to arrive ahead of schedule. By the time the lightning began, we were high up, well away from the trees.

It’s curious how the survival instinct works. When you’re carrying recording equipment that creates a circuit of electrons whizzing back and forth above your head, your perception of risk changes completely. By the time my brain had finished processing the fact that this made me a moving target, my legs had already been running downhill for some time, in search of the shelter of the forest.

It’s also true that, had I not lacked the sort of boldness some might expect, we would never have met Esther and her family. They were driving down a track near the forest and, in the middle of the pandemic, didn’t hesitate to get us out of there and take us somewhere safe. That, too, is a reflection of values.

The following day, we resumed the route where we’d been forced to leave it.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The forecast said nothing about thunderstorms for the next day, but after what we’d experienced, we decided it would be wiser not to push on as far as Andorra and to stop overnight at Refugi de Baiau instead. It seems we made the right call: we arrived just in time.

We spent the evening joking about how much protection a metal refuge in an iron-rich area could possibly offer during a thunderstorm. At least we’d stay dry. Potentially fried, we said, but dry.

As they say, bad things come in threes. The next day, another unforecast thunderstorm caught us near Estany Negre. This time, we saw the clouds coming. Albert insisted, tooth and nail, that it wasn’t going to rain, while I took exactly the opposite view. I won’t deny that I was uneasy: the terrain was already well suited to conducting electricity, and I had a target painted on my back.

I didn’t waste a second once I saw the first lightning bolt. It’s true that I could have stopped recording and dismantled the equipment to avoid creating such a strong electric field around me. But it’s also true that the telescopic sections of the pole were secured with wing nuts, the top of it extended above my head, the curtains of rain were alarmingly close, and I knew we were going to get soaked anyway. The decision was made: my priority was to lose altitude as quickly as possible, get out of the reach of the upper ridges of the cirque, avoid staying near the lake during the storm, and find shelter among the trees almost 400 metres below.

That’s exactly what I did. I kept the equipment recording and quickened my pace, descending as fast as I could while trying not to fall or injure myself. I reached the trees in 25 minutes; Albert and Martí, a young mountaineer we’d met at Baiau, took a more leisurely approach. Once we were back together, we regrouped and headed towards Refugi de Comapedrosa for something to drink, hoping the storm would soon pass.

No such luck. The storm persisted, and we still had to make our way down to Arinsal. Just as we began descending Collet de Comapedrosa, my parents appeared. Worried about our safety because of the storm, they had come out to meet us.

Paradoxically, down in Arinsal, where thunderstorms had actually been forecast, the sun was shining brilliantly.

I haven’t mentioned it before, but one of the expedition’s undeclared objectives was to find out just how effective the trail markings really were. Although we had all the GR11 GPS tracks loaded onto our device, it would remain switched off and we would only use it if we got lost. Not before.

For the most part, during the recording period, we found the trail well marked, with a few isolated exceptions. But one stretch took the prize, not only because of the problems it caused in following the trail, but also because it coincided with a technical failure we hadn’t encountered before. Or perhaps we had.

The story takes place on the Puigcerdà–Planoles stage. Temperatures had risen considerably, and water was becoming scarce. It was a change of circumstances that would only become more pronounced as we made our way towards Cap de Creus. I won’t go into every detail, but we came across just about everything: red-and-white paint marks on felled trees, cross marks pointing in the wrong direction, sections with multiple junctions between tracks and paths, none of them signposted… And a special mention must go to Coll de la Creu de Meians, where all these problems came together, with no markings at all at the junctions.

Trusting our common sense, our reading of the terrain and our extensive experience in the Pyrenees, we promptly got lost in a forest of low-growing vegetation. There was no path in sight, nor anything that looked remotely like one. So, back we went, climbing once more until we found the pass.

We’d spotted a less distinct path branching off the main one and dropping away to the right. If that wasn’t the trail, the other one had to be. Wrong again. Just as with the previous attempt, the path appeared in short stretches, like a trail of breadcrumbs, only to leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere — this time on a slope where a stumble would have been a bad idea.

Our navigation radar must have been on holiday that day, so we took out the GPS and made our way cross-country back to the pass. We checked the track, but what we saw made little sense: it seemed to cut straight across an area where we’d already established there was no path, only to rejoin a forest track further down.

Fed up with wasting time, we followed the dry stream bed straight down to the track and that was that. A bright red-and-white trail marker greeted us. Between all our wrong turns, we’d lost almost two hours, with the sun beating down on our heads.

I checked the app: battery OK, recording indicator on, lenses cleaned, and off we went again. We’d already exceeded our daily quota of mishaps by a considerable margin, so surely there was nothing left to worry about.

We reached the campsite, where the family were waiting for us to have dinner together. We filled them in on our day, and they told us about theirs. This side of the story rarely gets much attention, but providing support, moving camp from one place to another and having everything ready for those of us out on the trail is no small undertaking.

After dinner, I thought it would be a good idea to download the camera’s images onto my laptop, have a quick random look at a few shots and sort the photographs into stages.

That was when the surprises began. The technical problem that had drained the camera batteries before Llauset had meant that not a single image had been recorded from the last battery change onwards. The GPS track, on the other hand, had been recorded successfully.

The biggest shock came when I checked the stage we’d just completed: from Vilallobent onwards, there wasn’t a single image. Without deleting any of the photographs on the camera, I started the system and took a picture. There didn’t seem to be any problem; the image was recorded perfectly. But I had the feeling that it was taking longer than usual to process it. My conclusion was that two factors had a direct impact on image storage: the amount of data already accumulated on the memory card and the camera’s temperature. Clearly, I couldn’t rely on the app either.

From then on, the procedure changed: keep an eye on the temperature and the recording counter directly on the camera, replace the battery whenever the camera needed cooling down, and use the app only to start and stop the recording process.

By this point, I had more or less worked out the complete recording procedure, so the steadily rising temperatures as we approached the coast were no longer a problem, at least as far as the technical side of things was concerned.

Physically, we were becoming increasingly seasoned, and it showed when tackling reasonably long stages in dry conditions. Mentally, knowing that the coast was getting closer helped us take whatever came our way in our stride, whether it was fog, water shortages, chafing or even cuts. There were quite a few of those last ones. Back home, the vegetation is a little more forgiving, but on the other side of the mountains, whatever doesn’t prick you cuts you, and whatever doesn’t cut you scratches you. Fortunately, I tend to wear long trousers whatever the temperature, from -20°C to 45°C. As a result, unlike Albert, who was wearing shorts, I only ended up with bleeding arms.

As with everything, though, there’s another side to the story, and Albert could make a pretty convincing counterargument if we turned our attention to the wildlife. While I failed to arouse any interest from non-flying animals, Albert was bitten by a viper almost as soon as he set foot in the forest on the outskirts of Irún. A technical draw.

Flashbacks aside, and leaving dozens of anecdotes and curious details untold, we reached Cap de Creus to a rousing welcome. Our family and friends had secretly prepared banners, flags and all sorts of decorations, greeting us with a display that said it all without a word.

Albert had achieved his goal, and everyone’s happiness was there for all to see. I still had to record the stages I’d missed while recovering from my injury and fill in the gaps caused by technical problems. At that moment, though, the recording was the last thing on my mind. It was his big day, and I’d had the chance to be part of a dream come true. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

A few days later, we headed home.

Things had changed. Before setting off on the GR11, I had brought one phase of my working life to an end, and now a new one was beginning. That meant it was time to get back to work and devote my free time to post-production.

The strategy was very simple: organise all the material into folders. One folder for each stage, containing subfolders for the 360° images, the photographs taken with a conventional camera, and the GPS files. All the raw material, neatly organised. From there, I could start creating the final content.

A thorough review of the raw material allowed me to identify every gap in the recordings and any other image-related problems.

I had found a few stages with short sections missing from the photographic record, either because of technical failures or because I’d overlooked them. A perfectionist, purist approach would have dictated that I go back and record those missing sections at all costs. But my circumstances were quite different: the following summer, I would have only a limited number of days available, and I didn’t want to take advantage of the generosity of my family and friends by asking too much of them in terms of support. Besides, keeping an eye on the budget is a core requirement when you’re running a self-funded, non-professional project.

I decided that, for short sections that weren’t essential to the overall picture of the route, I would provide an explanatory note in the 360° viewer interface instead. I had already taken the same approach with earlier recordings, choosing not to retake blurred images caused by a lack of light, such as those captured in dense woodland.

This is an ambitious project operating under severe technological constraints imposed by the budget. Making the best use of the resources available sometimes means allowing the seams to show, in the knowledge that this wouldn’t happen with a professional camera.

Leaving those reflections aside, the sheer volume of data I was generating meant I needed to refine my workflows even further to work as efficiently as possible. Each stage involved a long list of tasks: ensuring that positional metadata was correctly embedded in the images; manually processing every photograph to remove faces and number plates; adjusting the north orientation of each image and levelling the horizon by hand; correcting GPS positioning drift; designing the route sections; adding contextual information; cleaning up the GPS tracks; manually inserting points of interest into the GPX files; incorporating text and the MIDE assessment diagram; assembling everything and integrating it into the website, along with the SEO work and interactive maps.

People often say that changing the order of the factors doesn’t change the result. In my case, I could say that was true, but with a few qualifications. Choosing one sequence of tasks over another could mean a difference of several hours of post-production work for each stage. And when those hours have to be squeezed into an already scarce supply of free time, they add up to days. Now multiply those days by 43, the number of stages the GR11 comprises on TreckView. The scale of the challenge changes completely.

The first stages would serve as a testing ground for developing a workflow capable of handling large volumes of data. Although I worked hard to publish the stages as quickly as possible, I wouldn’t have time to release all the material before the summer holidays arrived — and with them, the expedition to record the stages still missing.

I was working on the first stage of the GR11 while continuing to record other types of routes when something unimaginable happened: the company that made the software I used to create the 360° itineraries shut down for good. I had to find a new programme that could meet all the requirements of the routes, build a new interface, and rebuild every single route already published on TreckView using the new system, before any errors could eventually prevent the platform from working properly. The migration took months, but I was pleased with the result, as the new software allowed me to introduce further improvements and features across the platform.

All of this brought me right up to the summer holidays.

Some planning was in order. I needed to head back out to cover not only the stages I had missed, but also recording failures in Navarre, Aragon and Catalonia. I prioritised the missing high-mountain stages. Since these finished at Pineta, I would then work my way east to fill in the gaps. The stages through the Navarrese Pre-Pyrenees could be left until last, as they were closer to home.

The logistics also needed rethinking. This time, I wouldn’t need the same level of support as the previous summer, and Albert wouldn’t be joining me. My partner and I didn’t have exactly the same holiday dates either, so she would join us later on.

As it happened, family holidays had always meant the Pyrenees for as long as I could remember, with week-long circular treks carrying a tent. That made it possible to bring all the pieces together. And my travelling companion would be none other than my aita — my father. We would leave the vehicle in Izaba and record the stages as far as Pineta, following the previous year’s philosophy: in one continuous push, recording as we went, provided the weather played along. My partner and my ama — my mother — would pick us up at the end. After collecting the van from Izaba, we would head towards Puigcerdà.

My back injury was still there, although I could now carry a little more weight. Even so, I would use my usual recording rucksack rather than the huge pack that had injured my back in the first place, and my aita would carry whatever I couldn’t fit into mine. This meant travelling ultralight: we would sleep in mountain refuges whenever possible and, when that wasn’t an option, pitch a bivouac under the protection of a tarp. Our sleeping bags couldn’t be bulky either, so there was a good chance that at least one night spent out in the open would be an interesting experience.

We parked in Izaba, a Navarrese village we’ve known all our lives, as it has always been an obligatory stop on any trip to Belagua, Zuriza or Linza, whatever the time of year.

We’d packed our rucksacks at home, with the recording equipment being the only exception. Alongside the optimised procedure incorporating everything we’d learnt the previous year, I’d brought some substantial improvements. The external batteries we would be using had a much higher capacity, enough to last several days without needing an external power supply. I also now had a wristwatch-style remote control for the camera. This meant I could keep my phone disconnected from the camera, eliminating the failures caused by interference with the app.

These small improvements, combined with the revised procedure, should be enough to prevent a repeat of the critical failures we’d experienced the previous summer.

The journey to Zuriza went smoothly. My back didn’t seem to be suffering too much, and the new equipment upgrades worked perfectly.

The forecast for the following stage suggested a few showers, with a chance of rain. The probability wasn’t particularly high, but the risk was there. We set off hoping that, if the rain did arrive, we would have crossed to the other side of Txipeta by the time it started. That wasn’t how things turned out. The shower proved to be a storm cloud over the Petraficha gorge, and we were right underneath it. This time, lightning wasn’t a physical threat, but the sheer volume of rain led us to dismantle the equipment to prevent water from seeping into the connections between the camera, cable and battery.

We made our way through the narrow section of the gorge and reconnected the system, leaving a 400-metre stretch without coverage. In hindsight, if we’d waited a little while, we might have realised that the cloud had already dumped most of its water in that downpour, and we could have descended and resumed recording from the point where we’d stopped. At the time, however, we had no idea how the storm would develop, and we still had the pass to cross. If the weather worsened after we’d crossed it, we could carry on to the end of the stage; if it deteriorated before then, we’d have to turn back. Decisions and compromises. That’s the mountains for you.

Fortunately, we had no technical problems along the entire stretch to Pineta. The days went by, but it would be wrong to say things ever became monotonous.

You always meet people along the trail. Some share part of the journey with you, others simply cross your path, and a few leave a lasting impression for one reason or another. Among the latter, there’s a group I remember with particular fondness: a bunch of young men from Madrid whom we met on the Izaba–Zuriza stage and with whom we shared some wonderful moments all the way to Candanchú. They were chatty, polite, incredibly friendly and absolute machines in the mountains, but what really set them apart was their philosophy.

We’d spent the night at Lizara under a tarp because the refuge had no beds available. That was more than enough reason to get up early and start walking to warm our bones while breakfast was being served at the refuge.

We set off with a bit of a head start, but it seemed odd that they never caught up with us along the way. They eventually appeared in Candanchú that afternoon, but something was wrong. One of them could barely put a foot on the ground and was relying on two companions to help him move forward. Another, on top of carrying his own enormous trekking pack, had the injured man’s pack strapped to his chest, leaving little more than his nose and eyes visible among all the luggage. The injury had happened before they’d even reached the halfway point, yet they’d completed the stage like this: all pulling together, leaving no one behind, laughing along the way and as good friends as ever. True mountaineers.

The following morning, we set off towards Sallent in intermittent rain. The stage is special in its own right because of the terrain it crosses, but all the more so at a time when an active campaign is under way to prevent the magnificent Canal Roya valley from being permanently altered by ski lifts, resort infrastructure and access routes. I hope the photographic record of the valley never ends up being looked back on as a collection of historical images.

Once we’d finished the stage, the phone rang. None other than Edu, a childhood friend of mine and Albert’s brother. He had a few days off, was in the area and wanted to walk a stretch of the trail with us. To our surprise, Albert joined us too at Bujaruelo, and the two brothers accompanied us until we reached Pineta, the end of this section.

It was just before we began descending from Collado de Añisclo that Albert asked me whether I knew of any mountain route longer than the GR11 that had been recorded continuously in 360 degrees. At the time, I couldn’t give him a definite answer. But once we reached Pineta and spent some time looking into it, we found no evidence of anything comparable. The closest example we could find was the Gran Senda de Málaga, a 745-kilometre trail recorded by Google Street View. That was when we began to grasp the true scale of what we were doing.

We said goodbye to the two brothers and, after collecting the van in Izaba, set off for Cap de Llauset to capture the missing images from that stage. The plan was to retrace the route in the opposite direction until we reached the point where the catastrophic failure had occurred, then record a new sequence from there. The family members who had been handling the logistics would now take turns enjoying the mountains themselves, and this time my partner would be joining me.

The next stage that needed re-recording was the one from Puigcerdà to Planoles, which had caused us so many headaches the previous summer. This time was going to be different: I already knew the route and where I needed to focus my attention to avoid getting lost. The feeling was different now. We were walking with the confidence that comes from knowing the way, and at last I could enjoy the route to the full.

When we reached the infamous pass, we followed the path that branches off the main track and descends to the edge of the woodland. The path turns left, following the last line of trees, and we followed it. A flash of red caught my eye through the branches further ahead. I pushed my way through the vegetation and emerged onto the slope bordering the stream we had followed the previous year. There was a single fallen tree halfway down the slope, and there was the trail marker, partly hidden by the angle at which the tree had fallen. We left the forest and headed towards the marker, from where we could make out a path emerging further down the slope. This time, we’d found the official route. The initial bitterness had faded. We had made peace with the trail.

There was still some summer left, so we decided to take a break. My parents headed home, while my partner and I took a week off on the other side of the border.

Only three stages remained to complete the recording, so once our break was over, we returned to Auritz, a beautiful village I hadn’t been able to enjoy during my previous visit because of my injury. This time, everything felt different: the forecast was favourable, the terrain was easy going, and we were on the verge of completing the image-capture process.

For this special occasion, we had equally outstanding company: our dear Andrés, a family friend who had earned promotion to the rank of cousin through sheer merit. If anyone can make you burst out laughing with a spontaneous remark, it’s him.

My parents took care of the logistics, while my partner was responsible for supervising and carrying out the camera procedure as we walked. A top-notch team.

The days went exactly as planned, and we reached Izaba without a single technical problem.

On a personal level, arriving there left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I had completed the Trans-Pyrenean Trail, although not in the way I would have liked from a purely sporting perspective. On the other, from TreckView’s point of view, we had succeeded in recording the longest continuous mountain route to date. But this was only the fieldwork. Of course I was happy, but I knew the real challenge was about to begin, and this time I would have to face it without anyone’s help.

The sheer volume of material is overwhelming: more than 15,500 spherical photographs and over 150 raw GPX files. All of this material has to be processed before it can appear in its final form on the website.

The simplest raw material to process is the GPX data for each stage. In our case, the camera itself records the track as we walk, which means there is an exact correspondence between the images displayed along the virtual route and the track available for download. In other words, the photographs provide 360-degree visual validation of the route itself.

Several GPX files are generated for each stage, recording every single movement we make. These segments must be joined together to create a single track, then cleaned up to remove detours that do not belong to the route. Once the final itinerary has been defined, points of interest such as junctions, refuges and springs are added manually to make navigation easier. The result is a curated track, ready to download and use on a GPS device.

When it comes to the images, the first step is to ensure that each file contains the appropriate metadata so that the production software can recognise it. Every shot must also be reviewed individually to blur or remove faces and vehicle number plates.

Once the images are ready, the assembly of the virtual route begins. To manage interactivity, each stage is divided into segments, allowing users to jump from one section to another via the map. This is painstaking, entirely manual work: every image must be levelled and oriented precisely to correct the pitch and roll that are inevitable when capturing images in itinere. The initial direction of the lens is also adjusted manually, pointing it towards a bend or a significant change in elevation, for example, while the usual GPS positioning drift is corrected as the work progresses.

Finally, contextual information is overlaid on the screen in exactly the right place: junction directions, details of refuges and springs, each accompanied by its corresponding icon for immediate visual identification.

On top of this entire visual production process, there is the creation of essential complementary content and shortcuts, including descriptive texts, MIDE assessment sheets, avalanche bulletins, weather information and links to route starting points. All of this involves more than half a dozen commercial software packages, along with various specialist plugins for the content management system.

Let’s not fool ourselves: production is an adventure too, but it lacks the excitement of fieldwork. Suffice it to say that publishing the entire GR11 took me a little over a year. That figure speaks for itself.

The feeling of pressing the publish button for the last time, on stage 43, is what truly brings the experience full circle. After so many months of work, the entire journey flashes through your mind: Albert’s phone call, the first kilometres, the 23-kilogram rucksack, the back pain, the return to the trail, the thunderstorms, getting lost, the batteries running flat, the images that never made it into the recording, the early starts, the families waiting at the end of each day and, finally, the salty air of Cap de Creus.

Throughout that time, the GR11 had meant many different things. At first, it was an unexpected opportunity. Then it became a problem to solve. Later, an injury seemed to bring the project to an end. After that came a journey shared with others, a succession of decisions, compromises, improvisations and small steps forward. And then, for more than a year, a mountain of photographs that seemed to have no end.

When that final stage was published, I could finally stop thinking of the GR11 as something still left to do. There were no more sections to re-record, no more batteries to check, no more tracks to correct, no more alternative ways to process an image to find. The route was there, complete.

Perhaps that is what I remember most about that final click. Not the feeling of having finished a trek, because we had reached Cap de Creus long before. Nor the feeling of having completed a project, because TreckView would continue to evolve long afterwards.

It was simply the feeling of closing a door that had been left open for far too long.

For a moment, I was back up there, walking with the camera above my head, still unaware of how it would all end.

And then I remembered a question someone had asked me years earlier: whether any of it was really worth it.

Some answers need no explanation.

There are journeys, and there are journeys.