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1:5 Vallée du Trient

The Trient valley proper begins on the outer edge of the Mont Blanc range in the snowfields of the Plateau du Trient, rimmed by the Aiguille du Tour, Aiguilles Dorées and Pointe d’Orny. From the northern edge of the plateau the fast-receding Trient glacier cascades steeply downhill to a funnel of moraines, pinewoods and pastures that spill out by the hamlet of Le Peuty which neighbours the small village of Trient, a village that’s well-known to trekkers as an overnight halt on both the Tour du Mont Blanc and the Chamonix to Zermatt Walker’s Haute Route.

The main road link between Martigny and Chamonix crosses Col de la Forclaz above Trient, and skirts the village on its way down the narrowing valley before turning southwest round a spur on the way to the French border at Le Châtelard. Before reaching that border, however, another road cuts sharply back to the right and climbs to Finhaut, built on a terrace high above the head of the Trient gorge. Meanwhile, the Trient river, boosted by the Eau Noire (which begins at the Col des Montets in France), burrows its way into a deep shaft heading northeast towards the Rhône’s valley. Walking routes stretch the length of the ever-deepening gorge, but keep to its upper reaches. That which goes from Finhaut to Vernayaz on the sunny left bank has the pick of the views, while another on the right bank, beginning at the mouth of the Vallée du Trient and ending in the Rhône valley below Gueuroz, links a series of remote hamlets: Litro, Planajeur, La Crêta, La Tailla and Gueuroz itself.