Tour of the Vanoise - A Trekker's Guidebook

An essential guidebook to walking the 10-12 day Tour of the Vanoise around of one of the finest mountain areas of France, between Mt Blanc and the Écrins. The second most popular mountain tour after the Tour of Mont Blanc. Plus shorter treks: the Tour des Glaciers de la Vanoise, Tour of the Eastern Vanoise and Traverse of the Vanoise.

* Walking in the Tarentaise & Beaufortain Alps by J.W. Akitt (pb Cicerone Press, 1995) - a guidebook for walkers which details 53 day-walks and four mostly short tours (including the Tour des Glaciers de la Vanoise) in these neighbouring mountain areas. Very useful for trekkers planning a return to explore the region further.

* Walking the Alpine Parks of France & Northwest Italy by Marcia R. Lieberman (pb The Mountaineers, Washington, 1994 - distributed in the UK by Cordée) - contains a chapter on the Vanoise National Park, with a number of day-walks and a few short tours described.

* Walking the French Alps: GR5 by Martin Collins (pb Cicerone Press, 1984) - an excellent guide to this classic long-distance route.
The book provides details of the GR55 trans-Vanoise stretch, as well as the main GR5 that crosses the region covered by the present guide (albeit in the opposite direction), and the Maurienne villages variant, GR5E.

* Walking the GR5: Lake Geneva to Mont-Blanc translated by Simon Knight (pb Robertson McCarta, 1990) - this is a direct translation from the French Topoguides produced by the Fédération Française de la Randonnée Pédestre (FFRP). The guide contains full-colour extracts from IGN maps, but in places the route is incorrectly marked. As with the Cicerone guide to the GR5 mentioned above, this particular book covers the Vanoise region well - GR55 and basic GR5 - but is now out of print.

* Classic Walks of the World edited by Walt Unsworth (pb Oxford Illustrated Press, 1985) - a large-format ‘glossy’ book which has a chapter by Martin Collins describing the GR55 traverse of the Vanoise from Landry to Modane - nicely illustrated in colour and black & white. This book is now out of print, but may be ordered through local libraries.

* The Outdoor Traveler’s Guide: The Alps by Marcia R. Lieberman (pb Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York, 1991 - available from Stanfords in London) - lavishly illustrated with colour photographs by Tim Thompson, this is a good alpine primer by an American devotee to the Alps. A brief chapter is given to the Vanoise National Park.