Route 1 Lac de l'Arcelle
Route 2 La Pierre aux Pieds
Route 3 Lac Blanc and Plan des Eaux
Route 4 Vallon de la Rocheure
Route 5 Pointe de Lanserlia
Route 6 Hannibal's Crossing (Col Clapier)
Route 7 Mont Froid
Route 8 Pointe de Bellecombe
Route 9 High Valley Walk
Route 10 Pointe de l'Observatoire
Route 11 Pointe Droset
Route 12 Crête de la Turra and Pointe du Grand Vallon
Route 13 Pointe des Fours
Route 14 3000ers Circuit
Route 15 Lessières Traverse
Route 16 Le Petit Vallon
Route 17 Roche d'Etache
Route 18 Traverse of Pointe de Cugne
Route 19 North Ridge of Cime du Laro
Route 20 Signal du Petit Mont Cenis
Route 21 Arête de Léché
Route 22 La Dent Parrachée
Route 23 Le Pichet, Lanslevillard
Route 24 The Pinnacles, Aussois
Route 25 Guy Favre, Balme Noir
The Victor Emmanuel Fort Complex
Route 26 Traversée des Anges
Route 27 Montée au Ciel
Route 28 Les Rois Mages
Route 29 Descente aux Enfers
Route 30 Remontée du Purgatoire
Via Ferrata/Rock Climbing
Route 31 Via Cordatta, Col de la Madeleine
Route 32 Rocher des Amoureux
Route 33 Sollières
Route 34 Rocher de Termignon
Route 35 Blocs de la Madeleine
Route 36 Dalles du Mollard
Route 37 Drailles Blanches
Bike hire and bike shops
The routes
Route 38 Termignon and Sollières Circuit
Route 39 La Girarde
Route 40 Champions' Loop
Route 41 Chemin du Petit Bonheur
Route 42 The Sardières Monolith
Route 43 Mont Cenis Circuit
Route 44 Col du Mont Cenis
Route 45 Aussois Loop
Route 46 Col de l'Iseran
Route 47 Col du Galibier
Route 48 Tour of the Vanoise Glaciers
Route 49 Tour of Méan Martin
Route 50 Tour of Pointe de l'Echelle
Appendix A Route summary tables
Appendix B Useful contacts
Appendix C Useful phrases
INTRODUCTION
Where do French mountain guides go for their holidays? I once asked a guide this question, while standing on the summits of the Domes du Miage in the Mont Blanc range, and he pointed to some rose-pink-tipped summits in the far distance. ‘La Vanoise,’ was the reply. And so began an adventure to discover a range of mountains steeped in history, modest in altitude and of breathtaking beauty. The Vanoise massif is a beautiful range of mountains bounded by the valleys of the Maurienne and the Tarentaise. The Maurienne valley is over 60km long, towered over by peaks of staggering symmetry straight from a child's drawing of mountains. Many figures from history and mountaineering legend have trod through its forests and along its ancient tracks; yet the valley is somehow forgotten by the British mountaineering fraternity, despite having been at the heart of the early days of Alpine exploration. Now is the time to rediscover the Maurienne.
The Upper Maurienne Valley from the top of the Guy Favre via ferrata
The Maurienne valley in the Savoy region was well known to European travellers; for millennia it was the main route from north-western Europe to the cultural centres of Italy. The English Romantic landscape artist JMW Turner was sufficiently inspired by his crossing of the Col du Mont Cenis to record the experience in a masterpiece, ‘The Passage of Mont Cenis’ (1820). The valley is also one of those believed to be central to the most famous of Alpine journeys, Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. His supposed route into Italy is now a pleasant half-day's walk to a far-reaching viewpoint. The valley also once formed the main route from Lyon to Milan and was part of the Spice Road between these two important cities – the village of Termignon had a chapel dedicated to Notre Dame de Poivre (Our Lady of the Pepper).
The French–Italian border in this area has shifted many times and there are nearly 30 fortresses in the valley, evidence of the many border conflicts. (Today, the Victor Emmanuel Fort Complex forms the focus of a series of breathtaking via ferratas described in this book.) In 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte ordered the construction of a road from the valley to aid his invasion of Italy. Throughout the mid-1800s the Dukes of Savoy fought long and hard here to maintain their sovereignty, as Savoy was a contested region between France and the Kingdom of Italy, under Victor Emmanuel.
The explorer Edward Whymper devoted a chapter of Scrambles Amongst the Alps to the ingenuity of the Fell railway and Frejus tunnel, both engineered to cross the Alps from here and in World War II fierce battles