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Trient, a small village visited by hundreds of trekkers every summer

While there are paths and farm tracks on both flanks, and the narrow-gauge Martigny to Chamonix railway (which carries the Mont Blanc Express) has managed to forge a route via stretches of tunnel along the north side of the gorge, the terrain is presumably too abrupt to encourage a road to be built all the way along the gorge walls – on either bank. There’s a road at the upper end, as we have seen on the way to Finhaut, and there’s another at the lower end that serves Salvan and Les Marecottes, but there’s nothing in between. So in order to find access to the Salanfe basin below the Dents du Midi, other than by the walker’s cols already mentioned, it is necessary to turn out of the Rhône valley along a minor road found on the northwest outskirts of Martigny at La Bâtiaz.

At first running parallel with the original valley road, it soon angles across the steep hillside of Mont d’Ottan, goes through a tunnel and emerges to cross the Pont du Gueuroz which spans the dramatic Gorges du Trient, here just a few paces wide with the river surging 180m below the bridge. Across this the road climbs on to the small resorts of Salvan and Les Marecottes, both of which have been built on natural shelves high above the gorge facing south and east. Salvan is the larger of the two, but hotel and b&b accommodation is available in both, while from Les Marecottes a cable car rises to Le Creusaz at 1777m for a panoramic view that includes the Mont Blanc range to the south. (Tourist information for both Salvan and Les Marecottes can be obtained from www.salvan.ch).