• Français
  • English

Simply Savoie

Guided walking – snowshoeing – via ferrata in the French Alps with Mark Tennent

Environment

Stone Stacking in the mountains

Cairns

A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic: c?rn (plural c?irn)

The Purpose of Cairns

Cairns, traditionally, have stood at places to mark particular spots. They have prehistoric origins as landmarks and marking burial sites.

In a walking or mountaineering context they are used to help navigation or route-finding in poor visibility. They are frequently erected at summits or key navigational points. Unfortunately they can morph into stone stacking.

Contrast this purpose with the stone stacks in the photograph below I took in the Vanoise National Park in the French Alps. They serve no purpose. In poor visibility they can (and do) lead to confusion and route-finding mistakes.

Stone piles in the Vanoise
Stone Piles in the Vanoise National Park

Why Stone Stacking Should Stop!

I believe stone stacking or “rock balancing” should stop for the following reasons:

  • Stone stacking takes away from the sense of wilderness or wildness. The feeling that no one has been there before.
  • It robs subsequent people of the feeling of wildness.
  • It’s like an animal marking it’s territory, “this is mine”.
  • It’s self-absorbed and narcissistic. It’s a form of “natural graffiti”.
  • Nature doesn’t need to be embellished; it speaks for itself!
  • Stacking stones goes against the principles of “Leave No Trace“.

A Phenomena Fuelled by Social Media

It’s is a plague propagated by Instagram and other social media platforms. It has become a type of “natural grafitti”! A search for #stonestacking on Instagram yiels over 30,000 results!

“Rock balancing” – it’s got out of hand.

?Please, enjoy the park but leave rocks and all natural objects in place … a curious but destructive practice … stacking up stones is simply vandalism”.

Post by Zion National Park Social Media Co-ordinator

 ?Social media has kind of popularized rock stacking as a meditative activity, and you used to have a handful of people doing it, but it has really escalated over the past few years on public lands,?

Wesley Trimble, the American Hiking Society

A demonstration of how social media can give rise to an exponential increase in an activity.

Environmental / Ecological Concerns

The movement of stones can cause erosion especially in fragile environments. Small animals have their fragile ecosystems damaged. The undersides of stones provide a cool, humid environment for invertabrates.

?Rock stacking is a way of quickly making your mark and having an image of it. People are posting pictures of them on Instagram, saying, ?I?ve been here and I made this? ?

John Hourston, the Blue Panet Society.

He first noticed the boom when he visited remote beaches in Orkney, Scotland, and found them littered with rock piles. He said,

?It struck me as a real shame, because there are very few places where you can still find solitude and seclusion, and here they were absolutely covered by the footprint of man.?

Stone Piles in Ireland

Isle of Skye, Scotland

In 2018 local residents on the Isle of Skye on the west coast of the Scotland have had enough. They dismantled more than 100 stone piles in the world-famous, Fairy Glen, near Uig and transported them back to where they belong. They claimed, in my view rightly, that it robbed the glen of its natural beauty.

Links to other articles

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/people-are-stacking-too-many-stones

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/17/stone-stacking-instagram-environment-adventure-tourism

Rock-stacking-denies-people-the-experience-of-wildness

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/30/ben-nevis-visitors-urged-not-to-build-mini-cairns

Is the Tour du Mont Blanc Sustainable?

The Sustainability of the Tour du Mont Blanc in Question

I guided several American groups hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc during the summer. The amount of people on this classic trekking route is amazing. It is clearly a great success however is the Tour du Mont Blanc sustainable?

Key Issues

Toilets

Look behind any large rock or amongst the trees close to the path and you will come across human waste and toilet paper. It’s hideous.

Erosion

The path is severely eroded. Given the many years that the Tour du Mont Blanc has existed you can expect erosion however walkers need to be educated.

Hikers on the Tour du Mont Blanc need to be educated to avoid taking short-cuts especially where paths zig-zag. These short-cuts create more channels for surface run-off that is quickly eroded after heavy rain. The fragile soil and plant life are unlikely to ever recover.

Walkers also need to learn to avoid walking immediately to the edge of the existing path. Walking immediately parallel to the path simply spreads the erosion in a ?ribbon? effect.

Mountain bikes, or as they are known in France VTT (Velo Tout Terrain) exacerbate and accelerate the rate of erosion. My observations show that they frequently avoid the drainage channels and rocks designed to take water off the path. By doing so they create a new channel for the water that simply by-passes the channel making it redundant; unable to do its job.

Watching a group descend from the Col du Grand Ferret they clearly had no regard for the erosion they were causing and spreading it across the mountain. I feed that mountain bikers are similar to downhill skiers; not real mountain lovers but those in search of an adrenaline buzz in a man-made environment.

Etiquette in the Mountains

In the mountains the etiquette has always been that those going up have priority over those going down. It’s common sense and courtesy really as it’s harder work going up hill. Whilst guiding an American lady this summer finding it hard going I was setting a slow pace for her. An American coming down the path indicated that I should move out of his way. I just stood there and politely reminded him of this mountain etiquette to which he said I was the first a***hole he’d met on the Tour. Charming.

Drones on the Tour du Mont Blanc

I can see the attraction of a drone and the amazing footage that one can obtain. However for those in the vicinity the buzzing like a demented bee is very intrusive. During a Tour du Mont Blanc this summer I was sitting with the group at the Col du Grand Ferret when a group of mountain bikers arrived. One of their number then got out a drone and launched it.

Potential Ideas for Improvement

Dry toilets

Putting in place dry toilets in locations where, currently, there are no toilets could help. There needs to be a move to construct bio matter type toilets in places where people tend to congregate e.g. the Col du Bonhomme (where there’s already a wooden shelter); Col de la Seigne or just below adjacent to the Casmatte; Col du Grand Ferret; Col du Tricot.

Leave No Trace

The use of zip-lock bags for toilet paper and / or human waste should be encouraged.

?Tourist Tax?

A levy for companies with groups on the TMB could be used for putting money back in to provide additional facilities and provide money to pay for ?wardens?.

Create the ?Mont Blanc National Park?

Despite its world renown the Mont Blanc massif has no special protection. National Park status would bring with it a level of regulation backed up by national park wardens. Yes, the TMB passes through Italy and Switzerland as well however even if the other countries did not agree, it would create an upwards pressure.

Wolves in the French Alps

The wolf is now well-established in the French Alps.  Locally, in Savoie, two wolves were seen at the ski resort of Courchevel. They were spotted and photographed after dark by one of the ski resort employees whilst driving a piste machine. Earlier in the winter ski patrollers came across the remains of a deer surrounded by wolf foot prints.

The wolf (Canis lupus) lives in a wide variety of areas in the Northern hemisphere from wooded plains to the mountains.? The wolf is adapted for running and long journeys. It weighs around 35kg for a male and 25kg for the female. Wolves are social animals and live in family groups. Within this group is a dominant couple and this year’s off-spring and sometimes one or two from the year before. In France the packs range from two to six at the end of winter, rarely more than eight. The packs territory depends on the amount of potential prey.

In the French Alps a typical territory is in the order of 200 ? 400 km2. Young wolves typically leave the pack when they are between two and four years old. These wolves account for between 10% and 40% of the wolf population. At this stage they are vulnerable with little experience as they hunt alone in an unknown territory.

What the Wolf Preys On

The wolf eats a wide range of food including insects and fruit but typically it will prey on hoofed animals like deer and sheep. It will also feed on carrion. The wolf is very adaptable to its environment but to survive needs reliable food source year round. Wild animals typically chamois, deer and wild boar make up its principle prey and help to control these populations when they become too abundant. The wolf population self-regulates (according to certain observers) as the mortality rate of young wolves increases when there is not enough prey. However the wolf will try to take domestic animals mainly in the spring and autumn. In the French Alps farmers use ?patou? ( Pyrenean mountain dogs) to protect flocks and herds from predation.

History of the Wolf in France

At the end of the 18th century there were 10, 000 ? 20,000 wolves in France, present from the shores of the Atlantic to the high mountains of the Alps and Pyrenees. After a well-coordinated effort of extermination the wolf disappeared from France in the 1930’s. The last of them were found in the Dordogne, Charente, Vienne and the Haute Vienne. In the Alps it had disappeared thirty years earlier.

The Return of the Wolf

The first indications of the return of the wolf to France was in the Southern Alps in the late 1980’s. There was a confirmed sighting in the Mercantour (Alpes Maritime) in November, 1992. They had not been re-introduced but had come from the Abruzzes mountains of Italy.

The return has been helped by wolves being a protected species (the Berne Convention); an abundance of wild hoofed animals and previously cultivated ground being abandoned and becoming wooded again. In Europe the wolf has benefited from the increased population of roe deer and wild boar. Wolves are not afraid to cross urbanised areas and transport infrastructure like railways and motorways. A few yeas after this first sighting wolves were observed in many areas of the Alps and other mountainous areas including the Vosges, Jura, the Massif Central and the Pyrenees. There’s no reason why they will limit themselves to just mountainous areas and are quite capable of colonising most regions in France. The wolf only needs a good population of prey.

The French Wolf Population Remains Precarious

At the end of the winter of 2015 the wolf population in France was estimated at 282 (source: ONCFS). By way of comparison in Spain and Italy there were 2000 and 1000 ? 1500 respectively.

Recent Wolf Encounters with Man

Encounters with man are relatively rare as they are unobtrusive, fearful and cover vast areas. In France the fear of wolves seems be instilled in the collective memory despite the only attacks on man being linked with rabies.? Protection dogs (“Patou” / Pyrenean Mountain Dogs) are being used by farmers to protect flocks from attacks by wolves. Studies have shown these dogs to be very effective if used properly. http://www.observatoireduloup.fr/

Why NOT to go to a ski resort in summer

If you are ever planning to enjoy the French alps in summer my recommendation is NOT to go to a place that is principally a winter ski resort. Why?

“Ghost Town”

The place can be like a ?ghost town?. Many of the big resorts make their money in the winter and the summer is sadly just an after-thought. This is clear when you find that most of the shops and cafes are all shut or at best just open from early July to the first week of September. I remember starting out from Val Thorens one August and couldn’t find a single cafe open for a coffee!

Do you enjoy living in the midst of a building site? Another reason is that summer is just about the only time the resort can do construction and maintenance work. The result is sprouting cranes, concrete mixers and builders working frantically to complete new projects while the weather makes this feasible. Dust and noise may be your constant companion.

Industrialisation

Do you enjoy unspoilt nature. Ski lift pylons sprouting amongst the alpine pastures or the bulldozed ski runs partially partially covered with the grass that may have survived being covered in heavily compacted snow. Artificially produced snow from the ?snow cannons? lining the side of the winter ski runs has a averse effect on the types of grass and flowers that will grow. Bull dozed tracks criss cross the ski area to allow maintenance of the ski paraphenalia. The only ?developpement durable? here is the copious amounts of concrete.

Up and down! Ski resorts may be high up with only one road up and down connecting them with the valley bottom. If you want to do anything else than stay in the immediate area of the resort that may be great but otherwise you will find yourself driving up and down the switch back roads to and fro from the valley bottom before being able to visit other neighbouring areas.

Prices. As they say here the prices inflate along with the altitude. The ?Huit a huit? superette, if it’s open, has a very limited stock along with high prices.

Amusement Park in the Mountains

The ?Disneyland des Alpes? – to me Disneyland would be hell on earth and yet many ski resorts seem hellbent on the ?Disneyfication? of the mountains. Sadly the winter ski clientele are largely composed of the ?want it now?, ?instant gratification? generation with no real ?feeling? / connection with the mountains that need no man-made embellishment necessary. The epitomy of this ?enfer? is the ?Folie Douce? – outdoor discos on the ski slopes with pounding music with a bass that can be heard across the valley. This leaves aside the alcohol fuelled debauchery. No thanks.

Recommended Places

Here’s a few of some of my favourite places. Pralognan-la-Vanoise, Beaufort, Areches-Beaufort, Talloires.

Skiings Benefits to the French Economy and Savoie

An interesting article from Le Dauphine newspaper (a regional paper for South-East France) on how much skiing introduces to the economy.

http://www.ledauphine.com/savoie/2012/10/26/skier-en-france-combien-ca-coute-combien-ca-rapporte

Ski lifts, through the selling of lift passes, generated 1.2 billion (French: milliard) Euros last year.? It is estimated that each euro spent on a lift pass generates 6 Euros spent on other items.? So one arrives at a figure of 8.4 billion euros spent for all the French ski resorts.? These resorts generate 120,000 jobs.

Savoie benefits from 65% of the income generated.

It’s clear that skiiing generates a huge income for the Savoie department.? How much of this income remains in the economy is a different question with large companies owning the ski lifts, such as the Compagnie des Alpes.? Does most of the money end up in the hands of shareholders rather than in the local economy?

With global warming, if you don’t believe it look at the dramatically shrinking glaciers, having so many eggs in the “skiing” basket may be a recipe for future economic disaster.

I find it surprising that people wish to take a summer holiday in a purpose built ski resort as many resemble a building site in summer.? What appears to “fit in” during the winter i.e. the ski lifts and ski runs suddenly take on a rather incongrous appearance in summer.? Ski runs are often eroded and tracks criss cross the hillside.

if you’re looking for a summer holiday in the Alps look to the more authentic villages where the landscape hasn’t been subject to the demands of the voracious and unsustainable ski industry.

The Tour du Mont Blanc ? Amongst The Madding Crowd

Walking the Tour du Mont Blanc on two occasions this summer my most striking impression was of the crowds. Guided walking groups were everywhere; from all parts of the globe. Clearly there’s a high demand for organised treks of the Tour du Mont Blanc. The Tour du Mont Blanc (or the TMB for short) has become a ?bucket list? item in the same way as the climbing of Mont Blanc itself.

It’s a fantastic trek but If you are seeking peace and tranquility you are unlikely to find it on the Tour du Mont Blanc. If you are still keen it may be worth considering prior to mid-July or September. One limiting factor for an ?early? TMB is that the high cols (passes), that reach around 2500 m, may hold large areas of snow into late June. This may mean having to cross large snow fields that may be frozen hard in the morning. Here a slip may have serious consequences. An ice axe and even crampons may be required to cross safely (and of course the knowledge to use them effectively). A second major factor is accommodation. Mountain refuges don’t typically open until the latter part of June, and close again in the latter half of September. Of course you can stay in more comfortable accommodation in the valleys. September, frequently a good month weather-wise, also sees various tourist services shutting down or on a much reduced timetable.

Please remember there’s much more the French Alps than Chamonix and the Mont Blanc massif, still with magnificent scenery and mountains, but ?off the (very) beaten track?. The Vanoise (outside the ski resorts) and the Beaufortain immediately spring to mind. Further afield there’s the Ecrins and the Queyras.

Despite the crowds tt was good to meet Florence and Bernadette, two ?Accompagnatrices? (Mountain Leaders) working for the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix. They were guiding a group of Alaskan women who were very much intent on enjoying themselves away from home.