Читать книгу 100 Hut Walks in the Alps - Kev Reynolds - Страница 17

WALK 5

Refuge de Gialorgues (2280m: 7480ft)

Start	St-Dalmas-le-Selvage (c1500m: 4921ft)
Valley base	St-Étienne-de-Tinée
Distance	8km (5miles) to the hut
Total ascent	780m (2559ft)
Time	3hrs up, 2hrs down
Map	Didier Richard 9 ‘Mercantour’ 1:50,000

Not being among the higher mountains of the Maritime Alps, and on the ‘wrong’ side of the Tinée valley, Refuge de Gialorgues does not have many visitors. Indeed, it is unmanned and locked, and prospective users should arrange to collect the key in advance – either from St-Dalmas or St-Étienne. And yet the scenery enjoyed on the approach to this hut is second to none, for as you progress through the Jalorgues glen, so the great battlements of the Ane massif (highest is Pointe Côte de l’Ane, 2916m) excite the imagination, and one could be forgiven for thinking you’d been transported to the Dolomites. The hut itself nestles among high rolling pastures under the southeastern crags of the massif, in a landscape conducive to lazy reflection.

St-Dalmas-le-Selvage (gîte d’étape) is a time-worn village with a beautifully decorated church tucked in a side glen approached by a minor road cutting west from the Col de la Bonette road about 4km north of St-Étienne-de-Tinée. It gazes southwest into a lovely valley through which a jeep track pushes its way to the base of the Ane massif. Either walk along this track, or drive as far as the National Park boundary near the La Barre ruins where the track forks and crosses a stream about 5km from St-Dalmas. If you walk from this point it will take little more than 1¼hrs to reach the hut.

A signpost directs the path from the track (1980m), and twists easily up the hillside to cross the track again at a higher level by a sign for the Mercantour National Park. The way continues among larches before angling left. Gaining height with little effort, views downvalley grow in extent, while the crags of Fort Carra loom above. An upper pasture is reached, and the trail sneaks past a number of low ruins and grey stone walls. Ahead a stream escapes a high basin through a narrow cleft. The way eases towards it, guided by a line of well-made cairns, then enters a broad open basin of pastureland – marshy in its bed where the stream meanders through. The path rises over grass hillocks (more tall cairns) to a knoll where you come to two small huts. The first is a timber chalet used by a shepherd; the second is the stone-built Refuge de Gialorgues. Above to the north-west a small cirque is rimmed with fingers and towers of rock, while the walkers’ pass of Col de Gialorgues lies 30mins to the southwest.

The unmanned Refuge de Gialorgues

Refuge de Gialorgues is CAF-owned. It can sleep 12, but as was mentioned above, it is unmanned and locked. Keys available at St-Dalmas or St-Étienne (Tel. CAF, Nice: 04 93 62 59 59, cafnice@cafnice.org, www.cafnice.org). If you plan to stay overnight you should be self-sufficient with food and cooking equipment.

Allow 45mins to return to the jeep track at la Barre, or 2hrs to St-Dalmas by the same route used on the approach.