What past do you refer to ? GRs exist since 1947.
Trails didn't change a lot since then, the principle stayed the same : Red and white signs to mark the path, and "recuperation" of historical paths, made by the circulation of persons (think about Le Saint Jacques de Compostelle, which is the historical path of the pilgrims).
It never was "extreme" or "dangerous" to follow a trail without a map in france, you would go through a lot of villages where you could get some water, buy some food, ask for directions and etc...
Very logically, if I were to plan a 2 week hike without a map in the past, I would go to a village that's on a GR path, walk one week and then go back. I never felt unconscious or in danger, I had no cellphone and no map
Believe me, hiking the alpine GRs without a map is asking for trouble. The trails are very well maintained but you need to plan your days, you don’t want to be tired out at 4pm in the middle of a very rocky portion. And if you were to hit fog or heavy rain, a map can be a lifesaver.
I’m pretty sure that until the 21st century, nearly everyone doing the gr5 for example would have bought a map
Well, you picked up one of the most difficult GR, situated in one of the most lethal landscape, with one of the worst weather, of france. That's not the fairest example, because that's not representative of the relative triviality of most of GRs. (Even "difficult" ones seems trivial compared to GR5.
France specifically seems to have a bizarre tolerance for "pay to play" culture and limited access in outdoor recreation. Countries all around them have shown how strong freedom to roam laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam) can work. Those just don't exist in France. Even in the US, trails are largely maintained by volunteers, non-profits, and federal institutions.
The French hiking federation is a nonprofit, and the vast majority of members are volunteers. But you still have costs, maintaining these routes costs money
They’re not charging toll. They’ve got an outdated funding model based on selling maps, and they’re sticking their head in the sand. But what are the other options? Go to the taxpayer? Put up advertising billboards on the trails?
Yes, you use taxpayer funds and volunteer trail crews. Having done trail volunteer maintenance myself on the PCT, I can tell you it works just fine. There are also low cost permits for thru hikers and trailhead parking, which offset some of the cost without creating nasty externalities like getting people lost (which is what happens when you charge for maps).
> France specifically seems to have a bizarre tolerance for "pay to play" culture and limited access in outdoor recreation. Countries all around them have shown how strong freedom to roam laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam) can work.
Source? Because that Wikipedia page does not state that: no word about France, Italy and Spain, and just a little "freedom to roam" in UK and Germany.
In France, you can enter any open landscape and bivouac there, unless the owner directly states you cannot. The law also forbids to build anything too near to the sea, breaking access to the coast. Private beaches are forbidden. Isn't that more than in most neighbouring countries?
> Even in the US, our trails are largely maintained by volunteers, non-profits, and federal institutions.
It's the same in France: mostly unpaid helpers from associations and paid workers from municipalities.
Right of passage laws are not part of the code civile, which is the legal system in France. Quebec follows this as well - a hiking/climbing had access removed because someone was thinking of building something. In common law countries areas, the fact that there is a well-used trail that has existed for some time means that people get to pass, regardless of whether it's private property or not. In code-civile jurisdictions, the government steps in and buys part of the land to allow for access.
This is completely at odds with the French GR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GR_footpath) trail. There are legal mandates to require public access to all coastline country wide and they are aggressively enforced. Nothing comparable exists in the US or most countries.
There are more miles of coastline with legally mandated public access in the US than in France. It’s simply handled at the state level not the federal.
> There are more miles of coastline with legally mandated public access in the US than in France.
France has 2,000 miles of total coastline (before considering access); Alaska alone has over 6,600.
A more sane comparison would be share of coastline with public access, or maybe for some purposes per-capita public access coastline. But absolute miles of public access coastline is silly.
If you include Alaska, ~75% of the US coastline has meaningful public access protections. If you don't include Alaska, because people don't sunbathe topless there or whatever, it's like ~20% based on my napkin math?
The original comment was "Nothing comparable exists in the US". Given that the entire West Coast and other key beach recreation states like North Carolina and Hawaii have stellar laws on public access, the root comment was simply not true.
