Seven days in the Parc National de la Vanoise

Having spent a week in April skiing in the Vanoise, we decided the scenery looked so good we’d spend a week hiking from hut to hut in the summer. Fortunately, there’s a fantastic loop – the tour of the Vanoise glaciers, with huts about 6 hours walking apart, and it’s relatively easy to get to by public transport too: we flew into Torino, caught the train to Bardonecchia, and then a bus through the Frejus tunnel to Modane to start the walk.

Day one saw us climb around 1600m from Modane, through pine forest filled with wild strawberries, and then across alpine meadows with flowers, to the Col de Chaviere, and then descending to the Refuge de Peclet Polset on the other side. The views were good to start with but as we approached the pass the cloud came in and it rained for a while. Fortunately we found an overhanging rock to have our lunch under, and by the time we’d finished the rain had too, although we still missed out on the promised views to Mt Blanc from the col.

Peclet Polset is a new refuge in a spectacular location, but we didn’t get to enjoy the views much as the rain came back shortly after we arrived. We did, however, enjoy the first of the fabulous four course meals that were to become a feature of staying in the Refuges: soup, followed by lasagne, then a cheese course, and fromage blanc avec myrtilles for desert!

Day two saw us travel down the valley from Peclet Polset to Refuge du Roc de la Peche before climbing 800m back up the side of the valley to the beautifully sited Refuge de la Valette. With better weather we were able to enjoy the huge variety of alpine flowers as well as watching bearded vultures soaring over the valley and a peregrine falcon hunting. The refuge came with a mysterious ruin that we never discovered the story of, a couple of attractive lakes, and friendly marmots, as well as lovely views down the valley.

On Day three we were up to watch the sunrise over the valley as we got our first clear day of the trip. We started with a series of ups and downs into glacial cirques hanging above the main valley, and views of the town of Pralognan far below. At the second cirque (Cirque du Petit Marchet) we decided to leave the marked path, scramble down into the cirque, then climb up to the col between it and Cirque du Grand Marchet. At the col we met a group of Bouquetins (Ibex) who kindly posed for photographs, seemingly unconcerned by our closeness.

From the col, we followed a faint trail down into the next Cirque, skirting an impressive band of cliffs, before traversing around the cirque underneath three magnificent waterfalls. We rejoined the main path on the way up to the next col (Col du Grand Marchet), and then had a precipitous descent featuring climbs with chains on them and scrambles down crags until we felt we were almost in Pralognan, before climbing all the way back up to the Refuge du Col de la Vanoise, another new refuge.

Unfortunately, day 4 dawned with rain and cloud to ground level. We set off down the East side of the col, with our initial plan to be to go to Refuge de la Leisse and then on an unmarked route over Col de Pierre Blanche to Refuge de la Femma. However, it rapidly became clear as we descended to the Torrent de la Leisse that we wouldn’t even be able to see the col in the cloud, so we opted instead to aim for Refuge du Plan du Lac for lunch and then on to de la Femma. Happily, the weather broke after lunch and we got views and some sun as we walked the rather nice path from Plan du Lac. The valley floor was absolutely filled with marmots and wildflowers, and we again watched falcons hunting as we approached the Refuge. Refuge de la Femma is an older refuge in a lovely spot with a large cliff behind it and a waterfall, and we thoroughly enjoyed adding it to our itinerary, despite the fact we’d have to walk back down the valley the following morning.

Day 5 was the best weather of the trip, with sunshine most of the day. The walk down the valley was just as nice as it had been on the way up, and the big climb back to the main path from Col de la Vanoise brought lovely views of La Grand Casse. The walk to Refuge de l’Arpont was fantastic, with glaciers looming above us, lovely lakes, and encounters with Bouquetin and Chamois. After reaching the refuge we hiked the hour or so up the hill to the beautiful Lac de l’Arpont, a glacial blue lake with the end of the glacier just above it – a fantastic spot to laze away a couple of hours.

Day 6 dawned with cloud in the valley and on the peaks, but clear skies at the refuge. Unfortunately, the trail immediately dived into the cloud and we spent most of the day without views as we traversed around La Dent Parrachee. After lunch the sun came out for a while, but by the time we reached Refuge de la Dent Parrachee the rain had started and it continued all evening. Dent Parrachee is another older refuge, but as it’s half an hour off the main track there were only twelve guests, and we had a very amusing evening talking in a mixture of French, English and German. The evening meal was great, and featured no fewer than five courses – Dent Parrachee really is an excellent place to stay!

Our last day started in thick cloud and rain, which didn’t let up for most of the day. We chose to climb over Col de la Masse to Refuge de l’Orgere, and then return to Modane. Sadly, we never got any views, and somehow we missed the main col in the cloud and ended up trekking along the ridge for a while looking for a reasonable descent before backtracking. We got to Orgere wet and cold, but fortunately they had a roaring fire going, so we sat and dried out before having lunch and descending in the now improving weather to Modane.

Overall, it was a great trip – we saw lots of wildlife, spectacular mountains and amazing wildflowers, ate great food, and generally enjoyed ourselves (even if it was perhaps less strenuous than most of our holidays). We’d thoroughly recommend the Tour de la Vanoise to anyone.