accessible by train (via Chambéry) with stations at Moutier, Landry, Bourg St-Maurice and Modane. Nearest useful airport is at Lyon.
As for the Italian side, rail access with Turin (via Chambéry and Modane), Lanzo and Cuorgne for the southern valleys, and Aosta for the northern side. Nearest international airport is Turin.
Maps:
The 1:50,000 Carte de Randonnées hiking map A3 Vanoise published by Rando Éditions, is useful for most of the Western Graians, while IGN covers much the same area with Serie Bleu sheets at 1:25,000. The Italian valleys are adequately covered by a series of 1:25,000 sheets published by IGC (Instituto Geografico Centrale). The Austrian publishing house, Kompass, also produces a series covering the Italian Graians at 1:50,000. Studio FMB of Bologna has published a good 1:50,000 sheet covering the Gran Paradiso National Park, complete with walking routes and rifugios prominently marked. This is entitled Gran Paradiso.
Guidebooks:
Walking in the Tarentaise & Beaufortain Alps by J. W. Akitt (Cicerone Press) gives a good selection of day and multi-day walks in these two regions of the Western Graians.
Walking the Alpine Parks of France & Northwest Italy by Marcia R. Lieberman (Cordee/The Mountaineers) details a number of walks, including multi-day treks, in both the Vanoise and Gran Paradiso National Parks.
Tour of the Vanoise by Kev Reynolds (Cicerone Press) describes the 10–12 day circuit outlined above, and also provides details of other multi-day tours and traverses within the vicinity of the Vanoise National Park.
The Gran Paradiso by Gillian Price (Cicerone Press) describes the Alta Via 2 trek, and a range of other walks in the Eastern Graians.
Through the Italian Alps by Gillian Price (Cicerone Press); the GTA, described in this guide, cuts right through the Eastern Graians.
The GR5 Trail by Paddy Dillon (Cicerone Press) includes a traverse of the Vanoise region.
Other reading:
Trekking & Climbing in the Western Alps by Hilary Sharp (New Holland Publishers) describes a traverse of the Vanoise region from Landry to Modane, and the Alta Via 4, the spectacular high route across the Gran Paradiso National Park between Cogne and Valgrisenche.
Classic Walks of the World by Walt Unsworth (Oxford Illustrated Press) has a chapter by Martin Collins that describes a crossing of the Vanoise region from Landry to Modane, the same as Hilary Sharp’s route in the above guide.
Classic Walks in the Alps by Kev Reynolds (Oxford Illustrated Press) includes a chapter by Andrew Harper describing a 7–8 day walk along the north flank of the Gran Paradiso from Ste Foy-Tarentaise to Champorcher. Much of this route follows Alta Via 2.
Walking & Climbing in the Alps by Stefano Ardito (Swan Hill Press 1995) contains a chapter describing an east-west traverse route between Cogne and Pralognan.
The Outdoor Traveler’s Guide to The Alps by Marcia R. Lieberman (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, New York) naturally includes detail of selected valleys and centres in the Graian Alps.
The Alps by R. L. G. Irving (Batsford, 1939) provides a romantic view of the Graians.
Mountain Holidays by Janet Adam Smith (Dent, 1946/The Ernest Press, 1997) is a charming account of pre-war holidays in Scotland and the Alps, which includes large sections devoted to the Graians. Evocative of an era long-gone, but with the surprise that some places have barely changed.
Climbing Days by Dorothy Pilley (Bell and Sons, 1935) is devoted to mountain adventures in assorted ranges, including the Graians.
Journals of Excursions in the Alps by W. Brockedon (James Duncan, 1833). Principally a painter, Brockedon traversed the Alps no less than 58 times on research, and crossed more than 40 passes. This book is an account of his travels in 1824 and 1825, which included the Graians.
Scrambles in the Eastern Graians, 1878–1897 by George Yeld (Fisher Unwin, 1900) – a pioneer’s view of the range. One-time editor of the Alpine Journal, Yeld became something of an authority on the Graians.
Refuge d’Entre Deux Eaux, a converted dairy farm in the heart of the Vanoise range
Chapter 4
THE MONT BLANC RANGE
Including the Chablais, Faucigny & Dents du Midi
For a region so well-endowed with big mountains and glaciers, the Mont Blanc range is surprisingly compact, measuring less than 40 kilometres by 15, and with the summit of Mont Blanc itself rising to 4807 metres as the highest point in Europe west of the Caucasus. That dome of snow and ice is attended by a large number of other peaks. Frison-Roche lists some 400 summits, which include among them Mont Maudit, Mont Blanc du Tacul, the Dent du Géant, Verte and Drus, the Grandes Jorasses and Mont Dolent, each with its own challenge to climbers and fenced in by a barrier of granite aiguilles that add their own identity to the massif. On the northern side these aiguilles bristle above Chamonix and the valley of the Arve, while the more sturdy ramparts of the Brenva face overlook the southern, Italian, side, along with the great Peuterey and Brouillard ridges.
Then there are the glaciers – literally dozens of them – that either project long tongues towards the main valleys, or hang suspended from high and remote cirques. Best-known is the Mer de Glace. Born of the Leschaux, Tacul and Géant icefields, it’s overlooked by the north face of the Grandes Jorasses and flanked by the rocky bastions of Charmoz, Grépon and Drus before snaking below the Montenvers to expire among rubble-strewn moraines. To the north-east the Argentière glacier is equally impressive, while farther down valley the Glacier des Bossons, broad at its formation almost at the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul and tapering below the tree-line, shows the full drama of a cascading icefall to visitors who need never leave the valley to admire its grandeur. On the south side of the range the Brenva glacier snakes down towards Entrèves, while the Glacier du Miage has bulldozed a huge wall of lateral moraine across the Val Veni.
The slopes of Le Brévent provide direct, frontal views of Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc’s glaciers have always formed a large part of the district’s appeal – especially to the non-mountaineer. In a letter dated 22 July 1816 written from Chamonix, P. B. Shelley expressed unrestrained enthusiasm for the mountains themselves (‘the immensity of these aerial summits excited ... a sentiment of ecstatic wonder, not unallied to madness’), but reserved true astonishment for the Bossons glacier and its icefall:
We saw this glacier, which comes close to the fertile plain, as we passed. Its surface was broken into a thousand unaccountable figures; conical and pyramidical crystallizations, more than fifty feet in height, rise from its surface, and precipices of ice, of dazzling splendour, overhang the woods and meadows of the vale. This glacier winds upwards from the valley, until it joins the masses of frost from which it was produced above, winding through its own ravine like a bright belt flung over the black region of the pines. There is more in all these scenes than mere magnitude of proportion: there is a majesty of outline; there is an awful grace in the very colours which invest these wonderful shapes – a charm which is peculiar to them, quite distinct even from the reality of their unutterable greatness.
Lozenge-shaped,
