Читать книгу The River Rhone Cycle Route. From the Alps to the Mediterranean онлайн

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The Rhone is the only one of Europe’s great rivers that has an ‘active’ glacier as its main source, although this is now only 7km long compared with a length of 140km at the end of the last ice age 14,000 years ago. As the glacier retreated it left three terminal moraines (large piles of eroded rubble brought down by the glacier), which are crossed en-route. The glacier is still retreating at about 10m per year and at this rate will disappear altogether in 700 years.

The Rhone is fed by a number of important tributaries including the Saône (draining the western slopes of the Jura) and the Isère, which rises in the Savoy Alps south of Mont Blanc.

Wildlife

While chamois and ibex can be found in the mountains near the source and a number of small mammals (including rabbits, hares, red squirrels, voles, water rats and weasels) may be seen scuttling across the track and deer glimpsed in forests, this is not a route for seeing wild animals. However, there are a few places where old bends of the river, abandoned since navigational improvements have made them redundant, have been turned into nature reserves. Of particular note is Printegarde nature reserve (Stage 15), home to many varieties of birds, animals and insects including black kites, storks, bee-eaters, European beaver and 40 varieties of dragonfly.