Day 1 - St. Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles

I miss-titled the original post. That was actually Day 0 as I hadn´t started walking yet.

So the weather was perfect...high in the 70s for crossing Route Napoleon. I started at about 10 before 7 am in the dark. I was able to find my way just fine. It was a slow and steady climb out of St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port. I stopped at Orisson to have breakfast and grab a sandwich for lunch. More steady climbing via a road until a point where I left the road and took a grassy pass over a shoulder. Several pilgrims had stopped there to watch nature at it´s finest: about 20-30 vultures fighting over a sheep that had just died within 10 minutes of my arrival. Previous to this point, the Way had been through open fields with grazing animals (sheep, cow, and horses) wandering unfenced along the road. Crossing that crest was a descent through the forests along a barbwire fence, which I believe was the Spanish-French border. I thought I was home free. WRONG. There was another steep climb up a rock road shortly after. In total, I climbed from 163 m to 1440 m at Col de Lepoeder. This was followed by a steep descent to 953 m to the town of Roncesvalles. It was about 27 km I had to walk and climb that day. Hard going for the first day.

Sometime during the day, I also injured my right leg, more specifically, my IT Band right at my knee. I don´t know what incident caused it specifically since it didn´t actually start hurting until dinner that night. I wasn´t able to move it, but it caused me no pain when kept still. It still hurts, but I´m moving on. I´ll make it, just a bit slower than everyone else.