The Pays des Écrins Super Noir (trail no. 15)

3 steps

1. Saint-Martin-de-Queyrières

   From Saint-Martin-de-Queyrières to  Vallouise (stage on the Super Noir - trail no. 15)

   • Hard
   • 7h
   • 35,1km
   • +1713m
2. Vallouise-Pelvoux

   From Vallouise to Champcella (stage on the Super Noir - trail no. 15)

   • Hard
   • 8h30
   • 41,5km
   • +2670m
3. Champcella

   From Champcella to Saint-Martin-de-Queyrières (stage on the Super Noir - trail no. 15)

   • Hard
   • 7h30
   • 37,4km
   • +2423m

48 points of interest

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  Flora

  The field maple

  This is the smallest member of the family of forest maples, growing to a height of 8 to 15 metres. It can live for up to 150 years. Its leaves have five round lobes; they are winged with wings sticking out in opposite directions. It is not fussy as to the dampness of the soil and it can withstand cold temperatures and drought. It is also an excellent bee forage plant, which can be enhanced by the proximity of a hive.

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  Fauna

  The marmot

  In the alpine pastures, the iconic marmot utters a loud high-pitched whistle to warn its neighbours of approaching danger: the golden eagle is on the prowl! This medium-sized rodent prefers to live in the high-mountain grasslands in family groups. Their favourite pastimes are gnawing, digging, taking a siesta in the sunshine and performing somersaults. In the winter, the marmot takes refuge in its burrow where it hibernates. It is only seen between the months of April and October. It marks the boundary of its territory by rubbing its cheeks on the rocks or leaving droppings.

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  Flora

  The woolly berardia

  The woolly berardia is a plant that grows approximately 10 centimetres tall and has a short, almost non-existent stem. This perennial member of the Asteracea family grows in limestone and schist screes. It has veined oval, woolly leaves which are covered in soft hairs. Its 4 to 7 cm compact head with pale yellow flowers stands up from its centre. 

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  Flora

  The common rock thrush

  In May, a melodious song rings out from the cliff top. It’s the song of the common rock thrush, appropriately named and a wonderful bird. Although the female is rather dull (an advantage when egg-sitting) the male sports an orange underside and a blue-grey head. A trans-Saharan migratory bird, every year it returns to the mountains of Southern Europe where it frequents the rocky, sunlit slopes. It is not very common and is in decline, so spotting it is even more special!

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  Vernacular heritage

  The Cabane de Chouvet

  Discover one of the most famous forest cabins in the Vallouise valley, the Cabane de Chouvet. Surrounded by larches, Scots pines and black pines, this unmanned cabin stands at an altitude of 1,860 metres. On this slope, the mountain land has been under restoration since 1914 to prevent erosion and to combat deforestation. 

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  Flora

  The Briançon plum tree

  Not far from the Cabane de Chouvet, some small trees grow which are covered in white flowers in the springtime. This is the Briançon plum tree. Later in the year, it will produce golden plums with a tart flavour, carried on a very short stalk. A species endemic to the southwestern Alps, it has been prized by man because the kernel inside its stone produced a very fine oil, called huile de marmotte (marmot oil). 

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  History

  Les Choulières

  The French children's song Savez-vous planter les choux? (Do you know how to plant cabbage?) is very appropriate here! In any event, the name Choulières is believed to be a reference to a place planted with cabbages and, by extension, a place where vegetables are grown. The phasing out of crop cultivation in the mountains has altered the landscape: the hay meadows and fields are now used as grazing meadows for increasingly large flocks of sheep.

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  Top

  Ailefroide

  Formerly an alpine pasture hamlet, Ailefroide lies at the foot of Mont Pelvoux, surrounded by larch woods and granite cliffs. It is the last hamlet in the valley, at the confluence of the valleys of Saint-Pierre and Celse Nière. The name Ailefroide is thought to originate from the term Alpe froide or “cold Alp”, a reference to the lack of sun here in the winter. It is the starting point of numerous trails and is a paradise for climbers. Ailefroide is a legendary destination for mountaineers: a stele commemorates the conquest of Mont Pelvoux in 1828.

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  Fauna

  The golden eagle

  A pair of eagles lives in the Ailefroide valley. Every pair has a very large hunting territory, which means there can be no more than one pair in a small valley of this size. This pair has built several eyries in the cliff walls around Ailefroide: just one is occupied every year, after a few refurbishments. The eyries are located at the lower altitudes of the hunting territory, so that the eagles can easily bring heavy prey back to the eaglet.

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  Vernacular heritage

  The penstock pipe

  This penstock pipe carries water to the Le Claux hydroelectric power plant, located just below here, which exploits the water from the Les Écrins massif. The power plant was inaugurated in 1932. At the time, the electricity generated was primarily used to power the aluminium factory located in L'Argentière-La Bessée. 

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  Flora

  Cool meadow

  The track passes through a meadow area, which is categorised as "cool" because of the ground water content there. A botanist quickly recognises this type of meadow through its range of plant life and, in particular, the presence of bistort, a bottle brush-shaped plant bearing a dense spike of tiny pink flowers at the top of its stem. It is also called langue de boeuf ("ox tongue" in English) because of the shape of its leaves.

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  Flora

  The grey alder

  In the valleys of the Alps and the Jura, the grey alder often grows in place of the black alder, present in many parts of France. Like its cousin, it grows on riversides and plays an important role in stabilising the banks. If it is cut down, its wood is bright orange in colour. But why cut it down?

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  Water

  The Gyr

  Humans are decidedly bizarre animals: they build, knock down and start again. To protect the new infrastructures of Pelvoux, the Gyr was dammed. But, not able to flow as it did before, it deepened its bed, thus placing the foundations in danger of damage. And so works were carried out to widen its bed, allowing it to flow more naturally. This is also more favourable for biodiversity, as well as protecting the developed urban areas.

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  Vernacular heritage

  The ski resort of Pelvoux-Vallouise

  The route first leads through the small ski resort of Pelvoux-Vallouise, built in 1982. Very family-focused, in winter it's the ideal place for young children to learn to ski, with small lifts lower down, while their big brothers and sisters can ski higher up.

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  Flora

  Silver spike grass

  A grass grows in large clumps on the embankment: silver spike grass. It is adapted to stony, dry and sunny ground. Its inflorescences reflecting silvery-gold glints create a beautiful effect, but they are particularly noticeable in the late summer, when it forms large shimmering bouquets in the evening sunlight.

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  Flora

  Forest of pine and oak

  The path now alternates between cleared areas and forested areas. This forest contains Scots pine (recognisable by its orangey coloured trunk, especially at the top), downy oak (its young branches and leaf undersides covered with a fine down), and larch. The Scots pine and downy oak are very drought-tolerant (it is very limey soil here) and can also withstand low temperatures, and they are typical of the montane zone in this part of the Alps.

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  Architecture

  Saint-Étienne de Vallouise Church

  Listed and protected as an historic monument since 22 October 1913, the church dedicated to Saint Stephen is one of the most beautiful religious edifices in Hautes-Alpes. It is typical of the Romanesque churches in the Briançon region built in the second half of the 15th century, although its exact construction date is still uncertain.

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  Panorama

  The Montbrison massif

  The path offers a beautiful overall view of the limestone massif of Montbrison, overlooking the hamlets of Pelvoux with the peaks of the Cime de la Condamine, the Tête des Lauzières, the Pic de Montbrison and the Tête d'Amont.

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  Flora

  The narrow-leaved lavender

  The path crosses some limestone screes. It is a dry environment. The narrow-leaved lavender grows in sunny areas, a reminder that the Pays de Écrins is in the Southern Alps after all! Not to be confused with the lavandin, this plant naturally grows on rocky slopes in the mountains of the Midi.

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  History

  The church in Vallouise

  The church of Saint-Étienne dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Inside is an altarpiece and a tabernacle in gilded wood dating from the eighteenth century, together with come mural paintings. Not far from the church stands the late sixteenth-century Chapel of the Penitents with a nineteenth-century painted facade.

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  Fauna

  The lesser horseshoe bat

  In summer, bats take up residence in the church roof. The species living here is the lesser horseshoe bat, which has been in serious decline over recent decades. Every year, the mothers return after hibernating in caves and each one gives birth to one bat pup. Bats are insectivore mammals threatened by the insecticides used on farmland and on wooden structures and the loss of their hunting habitats and roosts, among other things. They are all protected.

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  Architecture

  Vallouise

  Multi-storey houses - typical of the architecture in the valley in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - stand on the old village street. The ground floor was reserved for animals, the first floor for habitation and the upper floors for grain storage. People moved from one floor to another by means of balconies interconnected by a staircase. Many of these balconies are arcaded with stone columns. This type of arcaded balcony is found throughout the valley.

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  Fauna

  The clouded Apollo

  This butterfly with hyaline (glass-like) translucent white wings, marked with two black spots, flutters around the clearing or the edges of the forest, where the host plants of its caterpillars grow: the corydalis. Although abundant locally, it is nevertheless a species in sharp decline and is protected.

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  History

  The Sentier du Facteur - the postman's path

  In former times, the postman would take this path every day: He would set out from Vallouise, deliver letters in Puy-Saint-Vincent and drop back down to Vallouise, stopping at the hamlets of Parcher on the way. In the winter, when the snow was too deep, the Traversouires (the inhabitants of Puy-Saint-Vincent) donned their snowshoes and wielded their shovels to clear the postman's path down to Vallouise. 

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  Fauna

  The four-spotted chaser

  Dragonflies can be seen gliding around the lake One of them is relatively easy to identify: the four-spotted chaser. It is called this because there is a spot on each of its four wings. The female lays her eggs on floating vegetation and the larvae are aquatic. The dragonfly feeds primarily on mosquitoes and midges which it catches in mid-air. The male and female also mate while in flight... A real acrobat!

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  Fauna

  The common redstart

  The common redstart can be told apart from its cousin, the black redstart by its white eyebrow (hence its French name which is translated as "white-browed redstart") and its orange breast. At least for the male, since the female of both birds is duller and brownish, but the female common redstart also has an orangey tail. It returns from Africa in early April and searches the areas to find a hollow in a tree or in an old wall where it builds its nest. 

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  History

  Félix Neff

  Félix Neff was a Swiss Protestant pastor. He was responsible for the Protestant Revival in the Freissinières valley in the seventeenth century. He also set up the first education college for primary school teachers in France, in Dormillouse in 1826. He was also behind new irrigation and house-building techniques, developments which improved the everyday lives of the local people. 

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  Vernacular heritage

  The church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine

  The church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine was built in the seventeenth century. It is thought to be a former Protestant church which escaped destruction in 1684 when Louis XIV was leading an anti-Protestant drive. The Protestant church is then thought to have undergone works to convert it into a Catholic church.

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  History

  Freissinières

  The name Freissinières comes from the old word freissinière meaning "black ash". This municipality, which extends as far as the Col des Terres Blanches and the Col de Freissinières, both of which overlook the Champsaur valley, is made up of thirteen hamlets, although none of them are called Freissinières! Archaeological excavations carried out twenty years ago show that sites at high altitude (such as Faravel) were occupied on a seasonal basis from the retreat of the glaciers 12,000 years ago (Upper Palaeolithic period) and that this occupation continued after that.

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  Flora

  The common barberry

  The common barberry is a bush with long thorns arranged in threes, and with oval serrated leaves. In spring, it produces clusters of yellow flowers, which later develop into red, oval and elongated berries. These tart fruits are edible and can be made into jellies... if you have the patience to gather them! This shrub grows almost everywhere.

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  History

  The Freissinières valley

  The valley was created as the result of glacial overdeepening, that is to say, when the glacier came to a halt against the Pallon hard rock bar, it created a depression. When the glaciers retreated, a lake was left behind this rock bar and was gradually filled up by alluvial deposits. From a historical point of view, the Protestant pastor Félix Neff fundamentally altered life in the valley in 1826 by founding a training college for primary school teachers, developing irrigation processes and teaching new crop growing methods, among other things…

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  Fauna

  The spotted nutcracker

  A harsh call sounds from the forest. A jay perhaps? No, a nutcracker, its cousin. With dark, white-spotted plumage, this bird's strong beak can break open hazelnuts (although not walnuts as suggested by its name in French, cassenoix (walnut breaker)) and in particular it can dissect Swiss pine cones in order to reach the pine nuts inside. It inhabits high forests. It buries Swiss pine nuts in the ground to store up food for the winter. When winter comes, it will find the pine nuts again even under a thick layer of snow. Those it forgets will germinate.

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  Fauna

  Eagles, vultures and bearded vulture

  Numerous species of birds of prey glide around the Crête de Gaulent, scanning the alpine meadows. Might there be something edible down there? The pair of eagles living in this little valley might well choose a marmot. Present in the massif only in the summer and autumn, the griffon vultures keep an eye out for a dead sheep. As for the regal bearded vulture, even larger than the griffons, he picks up the leftovers as he can feed on bones. 

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  History

  The fields of Champcella

  The name Champcella came from champ caché, or hidden field. And it's true that, nestling on a flat ledge, the village cannot be seen from the Durance valley. As you gain height above the village, a number of clues as to its past agricultural tradition are still in evidence. The crops have disappeared, replaced by meadows, but the old walls, canals and stone piles - formed by the patient clearing of stones from the fields - are a reminder of bygone times.

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  History

  The Sentier du Gouffre - the ravine path

  The Sentier du Gouffre has sometimes been described as a Roman road, but we do not know the exact route the Roman road followed. One thing is certain, it used to be used by the villagers to reach their fields and vineyards, and for any other journeys they had to make.

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  Geology and geography

  The high Durance valley

  Protected from Atlantic influences by the Massif du Pelvoux, the high Durance valley has a very dry climate with wide seasonal temperature fluctuations. It has grasslands very similar to the steppes of Central Europe which are rare in France. It is part of the Natura 2000 “Steppique durancien et queyrassien” (Durance and Queras valley steppes) site.

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  History

  The lost village

  In ancient times, the Durance valley was a key communication corridor. Rama was a kind of staging post on the Roman road. In the Middle Ages, Rama was a small town with a noble's château. But the village was devastated by the capriciousness of the Durance and the Biaysse rivers on numerous occasions and the inhabitants gradually deserted the site, moving to neighbouring villages. The attachment of the parish of Rame to that of La Roche in 1446 is indicative of this decline.

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  Flora

  Juniperus thurifera or Spanish juniper

  This small tree is present in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and in a few departments in southern France, including the Hautes-Alpes. It is regarded as a relic from a warmer period far back in history. It has found a refuge in well exposed situations, on warm sunny slopes. Its needles are in the form of scales, lying against the branches. It is a monitored species.

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  Flora

  The Aristolochia pistolochia

  The hamlet of Pallon is in a sunny location. Around the village, a curious plant with long brown trumpet-like flowers grows on the edges of the stone piles in the fields and meadows: the aristolochia pistolochia or birthwort. Of Mediterranean affinity, this plant benefits from the hot dry climate here and is virtually at its northern boundary. It is the host plant of the caterpillars of a rare and protected butterfly: the Spanish festoon. 

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  Flora

  The savin juniper

  A low spreading shrub, the savin juniper is very common in stony meadows and uncultivated land on warm slopes. Its dark, matte green leaves in the form of small scales, overlap along the branches. So it isn't spiky... but you still need to be cautious as it is very toxic. For seasoning dishes, better to gather the fruits of the common juniper!

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  Water

  Bouchouse mountain stream

  The Bouchouse mountain stream is fed by the Le Pansier and La Pisse mountain streams 1,900 metres above sea level. It crosses the municipality of La Roche-de-Rame, supplying it with water. This mountain stream then flows into the Durance below the municipality.

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  Flora

  The bearberry

  The bearberry is a small bush which grows no taller than 20 centimetres. Its small, glossy, evergreen leaves are reminiscent of those of the lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis idaea) but they are not as thick and, above all, its fruits are much less appetising, although they are edible. It will depend on your tastes!

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  History

  The Bois du Truc

  The Bois du Truc overlooks the rock beds above the hamlet of Le Bathéou in the municipality of La Roche-de-Rame. In our region, a truc is a large buried rock, a rocky area or an abrupt buttress. So the Bois du Truc is the "wood of the large rock".

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  Flora

  Cotton grass

  On the water's edge, in the wet meadow, plants with a cottony head sway gently. This is cotton grass, a plant which has insignificant rudimentary flowers but it has fruits that have feathery tufts which aid their dispersal by the wind. The fruits are grouped in such a way that their tufts form a very appealing «pompom»! These plants are well adapted to the mountain climate.

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  Fauna

  The large marsh grasshopper

  In the wet areas beside the streams lives the large marsh grasshopper. Its French name, criquet engsanglanté, translates as the "bloodied grasshopper" because the female has purple-red marks which stand out against her general green colour. Her eggs are drought-sensitive so she only lays them in damp soil. When courting the female, the male does not chirp but makes clicking sounds, which he produces by stretching his hind leg in a sudden movement.

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  Fauna

  The bullfinch

  Gentle and melancholic calls can be heard coming from trees in the forest. They are the calls of the bullfinch, a plump and timid little passerine. The male can be identified from his pinkish red underside, while the female's is beige. Both have a black cap. They often live in small groups, staying in contact with one another through their little calls. It is a year-round resident.

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  Flora

  The larch

  Golden yellow needles in autumn, purple cones in the spring... The larch offers colour interest throughout the year, and rather suits its title "the tree of light". It drops its soft deciduous needles in autumn and winter. In spring, the slender branches of this conifer are dotted with female flowers, which will develop into cones, and male flowers. The larch thrives on the north-facing slopes and lights up the mountainsides. 

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  Flora

  The alpine anemone

  The alpine anemone or the alpine pulsatilla blooms here in the spring. It is a plant with a downy covering of white hairs on the large drooping flowers which are dark purple, contrasting with the bright yellow of the numerous stamens, and with very indented leaves. In summer, its fruits with a long pappus, or tuft, form a feathery seed head atop the stem. Although it is frequently found in localised areas, it is nevertheless a rare species dependent on steppe meadows in the Durance valley.

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