Читать книгу Mountain Adventures in the Maurienne. Summer routes for a multi-activity holiday in the French Alps онлайн

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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.