Excursion

See also: Excursion (homonymy)

The excursion is a leisure of outdoor which consists in following a route marked out or not. It is carried out by various means of transport: with foot, ski, Horse, Bicycle (road or VTT), in racket S, Roller etc an excursion is not only one means of moving, it is a leisure which associates sport and discovered.

History

The walking, as a sport, exists since good a long time: it formed already part of the philosophy of the Chinese Lao-tseu (towards -500): the word CAT , way, it is also the way borrowed by the walker. Walk is one of the practices gathered under the term wei-wu-wei , act-without-to act.

It is at the 19th century that the excursion with the direction where know we it appears. It is different from the walking, practiced since mists of time like means of transport, by its entertaining aspect. One of the fathers of the excursion is Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. It was not satisfied to overcome the Mont Blanc but also traversed many mountains: the the Jura, the the Vosges, Drill it, Vivarais. German Karl Baedeker (1801, 1859) publishes guides in which it describes his pedestrian courses. In France, in 1837, is published the first guide of excursion in the Forêt of Fontainebleau: Four walks in forest of Fontainebleau . In 1842, Claude François Denecourt (1788 - 1875) trace its first path in this same forest. " Denecourt" paths; always exist. In 1872, appears in Alsace the Vosgean Club, which will mark out the paths in the Vosgean massive . Thus Denecourt writes in 1839 to define its sights:

“But I am close forgetting that the table of such an imposing nature must be the work of the painter or the poet, of which it ignites the genius, and which my mission must restrict to direct the traveller who comes to admire the beauties of them. Attracted myself by the soft peace and the happiness which reside at the bottom of these wood and these deserts, I traversed them a long time, and, helped by the observations of the artists which attend them daily, I acquired a knowledge of the locality which put to me capable to announce all the most picturesque parts of them, and to offer to the traveller the means of visiting them with as much facility than of approval. As he is people who like the long walks, others, those which have less duration, and that the travellers do not have all the same amount of time to devote to our forest, I classified and divided of them the sites by rounds, from which the combinations different correspond to all the desires. ”

In France, the excursion is a sport of nature within the meaning of the L311-1 article of the Code of the Sport.

Hiking

The excursion, pedestrian in particular, has more and more success in France. It is an easily accessible and practicable leisure everywhere. Its duration is extremely variable: walk, excursion at the day, great excursion, Trekking in remote destinations. The degree of preparation and the hardware requirement are not the same ones according to the type, of the duration and the difficulty.

Stages

At the time of a walk of several days, several solutions are possible to spend the night:

Virtues of walk

With of the virtues the sporting one of the walking, the hiking is often the means of a resourcing. If traditional the Balades Sunday acts as cut with the daily newspaper, certain movements (ex: the Companions of St François, etc…) use these releasing virtues fully: the excursion can then appear one moment of exchange, reflection, bringing together with nature.

Paths

The hiking generally proceeds on paths. Many associations are given the responsability to mark out some in order to propose excursions.

Several paths of great excursion (GR.) traverse the country. Most famous of France is probably the GR20, which crosses the Corsica of north to the south. Each GR. is identified by a number. Guides called topo-guides make it possible to know their routes. In France, they are published by various associations, like the French federation of hiking, or by specialist publishers.

The paths of great excursion GR. (right-angled white on red rectangle) and GRP (right-angled yellow on red rectangle) as well as PR (right-angled yellow) are paths marked out by the French federation of hiking

Safety

The excursion is an activity of outdoor. An incident can take a turning much more tedious because of insulation and the difficulty in preventing the helps. It is not a dangerous activity on the condition of taking some simple precautions:
* To prepare its excursion by establishing a route and by carrying the adapted material and clothing. To take time to estimate the difficulties, and to adapt the excursion according to the members of the group who will carry out it.
to *Prévoir a Case of help.
*Se to inform about the Meteorology before leaving, and knowing to give up if the conditions are not good or worsens.
to *Avertir of the route and the hour of arrival before leaving.

It is necessary to take account of the medium in which the excursion will be carried out. The preparation, the material, clothing will be different if it is held in cold medium, hot, in forest, mountain, etc

Safety, it is also to know to use the means of orientation: chart, Compass and possibly GPS. This last apparatus is not essential, but a model adapted well to the excursion can appear extremely useful. It is necessary to know these means before leaving in order to be able to use them under difficult conditions (bad weather). In mountain, one can also provide oneself with a Altimètre, apparatus very useful to locate his position but also to be directed (progression by tangent with the level line).

The charts to be used are the charts with large scales (typically 1:25   000 or 1:50   000), published in Belgium by Belgian IGN, in France by IGN French, or in Swiss by Swisstopo. The chart makes it possible to identify the reliefs, the nature of the ground, altitudes. It makes it possible to measure the distances and the uneven ones (difference in altitude between arrival and the starting points) using the points with dimensions and from the level line . The median values of progression are in general from 4 to 5 km per hour, 300 to 350 m of made uneven per hour in rise, 400 to 450 m of made uneven per hour in descent. These values are to be adjusted according to the people, of the difficulties and the weather conditions.

Environmental impact of the excursion

The excursion makes it possible to discover superb landscape and environment. These mediums are often fragile and the hikers can accidentally disturb them or destroy them. The difficulty comes from the great number of people. For example, the passage repeated on a path can accelerate the erosion and the disappearance of the ground. This effect is worsened when a great number of people “cut” the laces of a mountain lane and increase the surface of ground considerably damaged by the repeated passages. An example is the degradation of certain sectors around the top of the Puy de Sancy in Auvergne where it is estimated that forty Hectare S of subalpine lawn thus disappeared. The specialists estimate in this case and taking into account the altitude (approximately 1600 m) which it will be necessary between twenty and hundred years so that this lawn is reconstituted. Another example is related to the use of deadwood to make fires. After a certain number of years the taking away deprives the ground of nutrients.

But the individual action can have an significant impact. In 2005, a hiker caused a fire in the national park of the Torres del Paine with the Chile by using an unauthorized stove. This fire has affected 7  % of the surface of the park.

See too

Paths

Organizations

Practices

Literature

* Robert Louis Stevenson, Voyage with an ass in the Cevennes

References and bibliography

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