Tour of the Vanoise - A Trekker's Guidebook
Tour of the Vanoise
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£7.99
This book is a guide to a 10-12 day walking tour of one of the most attractive mountain regions of France. The Vanoise Alps, wedged between Mont Blanc and the Massif des Écrins, provide not only a magnificent backdrop of 3000 metre (10,000ft) peaks, but an array of glaciers and snowfields, gleaming tarns, streams and waterfalls, beautiful alpine meadows flushed with an amazing kaleidoscope of wild flowers, isolated farms and tiny hamlets that belong, it seems, to an age long forgotten, a scattering of mountain huts, old stone ruins and abundant wildlife - it would be a very unobservant walker indeed who could complete the Tour of the Vanoise without noting at least marmots, chamois and bouquetin (ibex) from the trail.
The tour explores the very best of the Vanoise National Park and should appeal to all keen mountain walkers. Covering a distance of more than 154 kilometres (95 miles) it encounters some dramatic wild landscapes, is demanding in places and, with several passes to tackle in excess of 2500 metres (8200ft), ensures there’s plenty of height gain and loss; the total amount of ascent being some 7031 metres (23,068ft). Each stage has its challenge and its rewards. But there are no glacier crossings, no scrambling sections, no lengthy paths exposed to either stonefall or vertigo-inspiring exposure. Waymarks and cairns are mostly sufficient guides where the trail is indistinct, and in places signposts have been erected that provide a rough indication of the time required to reach the next hut, col or village along the way.
The route is an obvious one. By combining sections of that classic long-distance trail, the GR5 (La Grande Traversée des Alpes) on its way from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean, with the GR55 which cuts through the heart of the region, a neat, almost-figure-of-eight, tour becomes practicable. A shorter tour, dealing with the western loop below the Glaciers de la Vanoise, has become popular with French walkers to whom it is known as the Tour des Glaciers de la Vanoise; there’s also the possibility of creating a circuit of the eastern Vanoise in less than a week, while the five-day traverse of the range from Landry in the Tarentaise to Modane in the Arc valley has plenty of advocates too. But it is this convoluted tour that provides the greatest variety of scenic pleasures and the most rewards; a trek that deserves to become a classic in its own right.
Beginning in Modane in the Maurienne (the valley of the River Arc), the GR5 climbs steeply through forest to the edge of the National Park, then contours north-eastward to a deeply-cut glen containing two dammed lakes and a choice of three mountain huts on the southern flank of an extensive mountain mass bearing the largest glacier complex of the region. From Plan Sec an undulating trail crosses a mountain spur, then turns roughly northward on a long but spectacular diversion above the narrow Doron gorge. At the gorge’s northern limit the way descends to green pastures, then curves southward, climbing to a gentle, high plateau with glorious views across the unseen gorge to the Glaciers de la Vanoise slung between La Dent Parrachée and Pointe de la Réchasse.
Continuing south raw mountain scenery is exchanged for a more pastoral landscape. Then the path breaks out of the Doron valley and heads eastward, high above the Haute-Maurienne with steep meadows hanging from mid-mountain slopes. Refuge du Vallonbrun nestles in a quiet, secretive, glen-like terrace opposite the glaciers of Pointe de Ronce which guards the international road pass of Col du Mont Cenis. That road is but a distant twisting line, but beyond Vallonbrun the tour descends sharply to Col de la Madeleine and the Haute-Maurienne where traffic labours on its way to the Col de l’Iseran, second highest col in the French Alps after Col de la Bonette. The walker’s route through Haute-Maurienne, however, is loud with crickets, not traffic, as the path wades through fragrant meadows and patches of woodland, by-passes Bessans and continues in the bed of the valley to Bonneval-sur-Arc, a charming, medieval stone-built village that actively shuns all external signs of modernity. (An alternative high trail climbs beyond Bessans and rejoins the other route north of Bonneval.)
Between timeless Bonneval and the modern sophistication of Val d’Isère, the route crosses Col de l’Iseran (2764m: 9068ft), but does so by way of a delightful approach through the Vallon de la Lenta. Descent to Val d’Isère temporarily leaves the National Park, although for a while it goes through a nature reserve, samples some of France’s most popular and challenging ski terrain, and returns to the haven of the park south-east of Tignes where GR55 is joined. The crossing of Col de la Leisse in the shadow of La Grande Motte leads into the U-shaped scoop of Vallon de la Leisse flanked by the great wall that links La Grande Motte with La Grande Casse, the latter being the highest peak in the Vanoise Alps at 3855 metres (12,648ft). Refuge de la Leisse is set mid-way through the valley, and it is an easy day’s walk from there to reach either Refuge du Col de la Vanoise or the little resort town of Pralognan-la-Vanoise, while an alternative option is to stray southward to Entre Deux Eaux and the Vallon de la Rocheure before returning to the tour proper and crossing Col de la Vanoise.
The final stretch, either tackled as a very long day or two more acceptable stages, follows the Chavière torrent upstream along the fringe of the National Park to Refuge de Péclet-Polset, and a crossing of the highest pass tackled by any GR (Grande Randonnée) route, Col de Chavière (2796m: 9173ft) by which the Maurienne is regained at Modane.
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