Start 06h26 · Arrival 13h03. 13.7 km, +376 m, -569 m, 4h44 moving and 6h37 in total. Less of a beast physically, but mentally a very big one: a real turning point at Bassetta.
Waking up at Usciolu, you can feel straight away that the day won't be settled by the legs alone. The sunrise is beautiful, the mood could be perfect, but Benjamin is clearly not himself. He's there physically, he's moving, but something is stuck. On the GR20, willpower isn't always enough: sometimes your head simply refuses to follow.
We're not chasing heroics that day. Our goal: reach Croci, look after our bodies, keep enough in the tank for the last two days. That choice is nothing like a failure. If anything, it's exactly what lets us stay in charge of our GR20 instead of just enduring it.
« On a trek like this one, your head can sometimes get going again thanks to something very simple: hearing the right voice at the right moment. »
We'd naively imagined the south would be easier. This day breaks that idea once more. The boulders are still there, so are the ridgelines. It's no longer the brutality of the north, but it's certainly no stroll. The south wears you down differently: through length, through accumulation, through those stretches where you think you can ease off when you actually still need to stay sharp.
Benjamin moves as if through a tunnel. Almost on autopilot. The grumbling comes out more easily, the enjoyment vanishes. At that point, pushing on at any cost would have served no purpose. We needed a real break.
The Bassetta sheepfold comes at just the right moment. I talk him into really stopping — not a bare-minimum pause with two bars wolfed down standing up. A proper "all in" break: omelette, coffee, Coke, chestnut tart. Anything that can put some fuel back in the body and a bit of light back in the head.
And above all, Benjamin takes the time for a long call with Laura. That moment changes something. You can almost see it physically. His face relaxes, the energy returns, the motivation climbs back up. The meal helps, the carbs do their job, but the call plays a huge part too. On a trek like this one, your head can sometimes get going again thanks to something very simple: hearing the right voice at the right moment.
After Bassetta, the day doesn't turn miraculously easy, but it becomes possible again. And a little, typically Corsican surprise: we finally come across the famous cochongliers. Until then it had almost sounded like a hikers' legend, the kind of thing everyone talks about in the refuges. But no, they really do exist. And seeing them there, in the middle of the tiredness and this mental day, adds an absurd, memorable detail to the stage.
We reach the Croci sheepfold well and truly worn out. Not the longest day on our route, but it weighed on us in another way. Mentally, it asked for a lot. It reminded us that a trek isn't won on strength in the climbs alone: you also have to know how to rescue a day that starts badly, help the other person when they're falling apart, and accept that a long break is sometimes the most effective decision.
As is so often the case on the GR20, everything already feels less serious once you're settled in. Pack down, a Pietra in hand. And Benjamin is back in the game.
At Croci, the mood around the table is incredible. We find ourselves among hikers from all over: French, Corsican, Swiss, German, Québécois, Belgian. Everyone is wearing the tiredness of the GR20 on their face. And that same thrill of being there.
