The GR 5 is well documented. As any GR trail in France, it’s got its own set of guidebooks, consistently edited by the FFRP (Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre which approximately stands for French Hiking Federation). These books are in French and due to the popularity of this route among English speaking (or, in general, non-French speaking) people, UK publisher Cicerone released a guidebook that covers just the Alpine Traverse.

As far as maps go, there’s no specific set and the French governmental ones must be used. These are published by the IGN (Institute Geographique National… no false friends here, it means what it looks like) in 1:50.000 and 1:25.000 scales.

FFRP guides

There is one (or a set) for every GR trail in France with a presentation that’s consistent across the whole series. Four of them cover the Alpine Traverse in the GR 5:

  • 504, Du Léman au Mont-Blanc
  • 530, La Vanoise
  • 531, La Grande Traversée del Alpes
  • 507, Tinée-Vésubie Vallée des Merveilles

These guides are very compact and convenient but you need to be able to at least read some French. They’re very well organized and provide lots of logistics information which is a very important part in an environment where civilization is all over the place: stuff like services in the villages, stuffed huts locations, opening dates and services; transport options, contact numbers for everything imaginable… plus route description and the most typical background information on local flora, fauna, etc. These guides are meant to be self contained and everything you should need to travel so they include real topographic maps which are excerpts from the IGN 1:50.000 Orange series. They are extracted around trail’s tread and provide a bit of a tunnel vision.

Route description is not broken down in stages, just a continuous flow with check points in relevant spots such as villages, huts or passes. Hiking time in between check points is provided but no distance information is available.

These books are the best value both in monetary and weight terms if you rely solely on them on the trail and the logistics information is outstanding. I don’t like they don’t provide distances which is, in my opinion, much more meaningful than travel time. They can be found at the FFRP website.

FFRP guides for the Alpine Traverse

Cicerone Guidebook

The GR5 Trail, Through the French Alps: Lake Geneva to Nice

in English. Available from the Cicerone website or book dealers.

Cicerone keeps a high standard across all the guidebooks I own from them and this one is no different. It’s a visually attractive book with a clear presentation and good organization. Route description and background information are fine. Logistics information has a twist towards the English speaking public. The route descriptions are organized in stages and each starts with a very useful brief summary which includes the distance travelled. There are sketch maps but no topo maps.

This book has a (subjective opinion follows) nicer presentation than the FFRP ones and I find it more readable. The route descriptions are just as fine and I welcome the distance data (not stated in the FFRP books) but the logistics information is far less complete and the book is not self contained, you need additional topo maps to hike the trail.

The familiar Cicerone looks

IGN maps

The French IGN produces excellent quality topographic maps but unlike similar organizations in other countries, they do it with a recreational focus so trails are also clearly depicted and identified. This means a lot in a land with so many recreational trails. Topo recreational maps are offered in 1:50.000 and 1:25.000 series.

The maps are all very accurate, both topography and trail depiction. If any, I don’t like the information overload that makes them awkward to read sometimes. Both series follow an irregular grid pattern and sheets overlap conveniently. The 1:25.000 maps have a UTM grid, I can’t say if the 1:50.000 ones do (previous versions I used in the past didn’t).

The problem with these maps is they’re not drawn around the GR 5 and sheets are usually huge so you get a lot of wasted paper. You need as much as 19 to cover the length of the Alpine Traverse and apparently, getting the wider area ones doesn’t help because according to the literature, each 1:50.000 sheet breaks down into two 1:25.000 sheets (east and west) and since the trail follows a north to south direction you need about the same number of sheets. This, I must say, sounds strange to me as usually a 1:50.000 sheet breaks down into four 1:25.000 quads… but I haven’t got them all to verify.

I can confirm you need the following list of 1:25.000 Blueu series sheets:

  • 3428ET Thonon/Evian
  • 3528ET Morzine/Massif-du-Chablai
  • 3530ET Samoens/Haut-Griffe
  • 3531ET St.-Gervais-Les-Bains
  • 3532OT Massif du Beaufortin
  • 3532ET Les Arcs/La Plagne
  • 3633ET Tignes/Val-D’Isere
  • 3534OT Les Trois Vallées
  • 3535OT Nevache/Mont Thabor
  • 3536OT Briançon
  • 3537ET Guillestre
  • 3637OT Mont Viso
  • 3538ET Aiguille de Chambeyron
  • 3639OT Haut Tinée 1
  • 3640OT Haut Cians
  • 3641ET Moyen Tinée
  • 3741OT Vallée de la Vesubie
  • 3741ET Vallée de la Bevera et des Paillons
  • 3742OT Nice/Menton

This list is actually different from the other two lists I’ve had access to! which is a surprisingly common happening in map lists; particularly, when they have such undescriptive names as those above. The list in the Cicerone guidebook above is significantly different. The one here is almost the same except for one: number 15 in my list (3640OT Haut Cians) is mistaken for the nearly namesake ET and 3741ET is missing. I write this before I hike the trail but I’ve been following the red line in the maps (also known as sitting room hiking).

Together, they’re heavy: about 1.7 kg

The whole set of IGN blankets

On trail strategy

I like maps and I don’t like being in the mountains without a proper map. For a well marked trail like the GR 5, the 1:50.000 Orange series maps should suffice even though the topography is complex enough to justify the more detailed ones but in France it seems the 1:25.000 Bleue series are the standard in the mountains and it also seemed there weren’t much, if any, weight and bulk savings in getting the wider area ones (again, I can’t understand how this can be, but anyway…). I don’t know either if the 1:50.000 series have a UTM grid which is very important for distance estimation and for gps-aided navigation… if there’d be no UTM grid, I wouldn’t even carry a gps set. Bottom line, I got the 1:25.000 Bleue series batch and I’ll definitely be carrying them. I cut them all so I wouldn’t be carrying useless parts but with care to avoid a tunnel vision and keeping the visual references I’d have while on the trail on the part of the map that will be with me. I shed about half the weight of the whole set.

I’m still undecided as to which guidebook set to carry; I can read French so language is not a problem but still have to value pros and cons of each option.

I’ll tape everything back together, I promise…