The idea of making this hiking path in one shot came in 2018. As a preparation for my major trail-running race of the summer 2020, namely the CCC (Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix) from the UTMB event (which was finally cancelled), I did an attempt to complete this route. I did not imagine the adventure I would live during these 27 hours... Here are 6 anecdotes about it:
1) "The missing item": I started around noon on Friday, May 22 from La Roche-en-Ardenne, using my cell phone and the application AlpineQuest to follow the track. Regarding the food, I brought 2 gingerbreads of 400 grams each, bars, fruit jellys and 400 grams of Isostar powder to pour in my flasks. I planned to take water from public taps in villages as well as from rivers thanks to my filtering flask Katadyn.
After 35 km, this item fell off my bag but I noticed it only after roughly one kilometer. Without it, I could not hope to complete the route. Therefore I had to retrace my steps to find it and go on...
2) "The famous Ardennes weather": The forecasts from the webiste weather-forecast.com were saying "light rain" from Friday evening to Saturday morning (5 mm in total). The reality was in fact completely else with rain buckets down from 6pm to 1am! If the conditions were supportable at the beginning, I finished literally wet through the bones even with my impermeable jacket...
3) "The young wild boars": It was around 8pm and I was running on a large track in the forest just before Nassogne village (km 65 approx.) when I suddently stopped. 50 meters away, I saw a bunch of young wild boars without their mother. Knowing how dangerous this situation is, I decided to cut across the forest to avoid them.
4) "Sleeping in a bus shelter": Due to the weather conditions, I could not rest as wished since everything was wet. At least, each village from Wallonia has proper bus shelters. So I slept in one of those in Transinne village during one hour (from 2 to 3am) with my survival foil.
5) "The wild boar herd": Just after Transinne village (km 100 approx.), I left the asphalte road to run on a track between two fallow fields. I heard a grunt and a second later, a wild boar ran away just next to me... Then, 20 meters further away, a whole herd ran away! I was relieved to see that they were just afraid by my headlamp.
6) "Crossing the Lesse river": I was walking towards Daverdisse village (km 112 approx.) around 6am when I realised that the correct path was on the other side of the Lesse river. I looked at the map and saw there was no way to catch up this track before many km! As I did not wanted to turn back for 2 or 3 km, I decided to cross the river. Hopefully, the water level was not above my ankles.