7-day Tour du Taillefer

6 steps

1. 

   By walk

   La Morte

   From Alpe du Grand Serre to Rif Bruyant

   Flora

   History and architecture

   Pastoralism

   • Medium
   • 4h
   • 12,1km
   • +553m

2. 

   By walk

   Lavaldens

   From Rif-Bruyant to Valbonnais

   Pass

   History and architecture

   Panorama

   • Medium
   • 6h
   • 17,1km
   • +543m

3. 

   By walk

   Entraigues

   From Valbonnais to Les Daurens

   Fauna

   Flora

   History and architecture

   • Medium
   • 6h30
   • 16,4km
   • +776m

4. 

   By walk

   Chantelouve

   From Col d'Ornon to Villard-Reymond

   Pass

   Fauna

   Panorama

   • Medium
   • 4h
   • 9,5km
   • +631m

5. 

   By walk

   Villard-Reymond

   From Villard-Reymond to Taillefer Plateau

   Flora

   History and architecture

   Panorama

   • Medium
   • 5h30
   • 11,4km
   • +1138m

6. 

   By walk

   Oulles

   From Taillefer Plateau to Alpe du Grand Serre

   Flora

   Geology

   Top

   • Medium
   • 3h30
   • 12,9km
   • +269m

24 points of interest

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  Know-how

  A hydraulic adventure in Lavaldens

  At the end of the 19th century, industry began to overtake village windmills, which then disappeared one after the other. Paul Freynet, who lived in Lavaldens, decided to optimise his windmill by using hydraulic force in all its forms. The penstock drives several millstones, as well as a bolter and a sorter, and a saw for cutting wood lengthways, plus a circular saw for short logs. A major development was the introduction of a generator to produce electricity. Paul Freynet provided power to all the village long before the electricity network arrived in the valley, on the eve of the Great War.

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  Flora

  Tulipa Sylvestris

  This magnificent plant has flowers that are often tilted at the side, which helps it stand out from its horticultural cousins. Its pointed petals are a fine gold colour. The leaves are very light green, straight and long. The species is protected throughout France, and cannot be found at the florist’s, but only in or around fields. The bulbs have suffered from the increasing use of tractors and the deeper ploughing that results. The flower has greatly fallen in numbers and only grows in land where farming practices are still gentle, without pesticides or deep ploughing.

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  Fauna

  Cinereous vulture

  The Aegypius monachus, an immense bird of prey, all dressed in black, glides through the air in search of a cold meal. Very often to be found in the company of griffon vultures, it draws closer to the ground with a wide and heavy beat of its wings, turning its greyish head with its huge beak right and left, its eye seeking out every detail in the landscape. The subject of many myths and legends, its ash-grey plumage gave it its name... The four species of vulture in France never compete with one another. While the griffon vulture, with the help of its weak and large beak, prefers to eat the softer parts of carrion (viscera and muscles), the cinereous vulture likes the hard parts (skin, tendons and cartilage), which it rips using its strong, sharp beak. The fine beak of the Egyptian vulture means it can be a perfectionist... it picks the skeleton perfectly clean.

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  Fauna

  The Mouflon

  Introduced in 1949 into the Alps from breeds from Corsica and central Europe, this is an ancestor of the sheep with ammonite horns. Even though the European Union recommends strict protection of the mouflon, it can be hunted in certain conditions. It is ill-equipped for extreme Alpine conditions, and its population levels may fluctuate with the severity of winter.

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  Architecture

  Village in Valbonnais

  Since the Middle Ages, Entraigues and Valbonnais have been the two major towns in the valley.

  The towns produce an impression of coherence, despite a wide variety of architecture.

  In Valbonnais, we can see, in particular, the castles and fortified manor houses with their impressive dimensions and well-ordered façades, with sculpted wooden doors made for the local notables.

  Another witness to the town’s history is the train station: from 1926 to 1950, Valbonnais had a meter-gauge railway with electric engines (La Mure – Corps line), with a line running to the cement works downstream, near Le Pont-du-Prêtre.

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  Fauna

  The short-toed snake eagle

  Spring has hardly begun when high up in the spire a piercing cry is heard. You must raise your head to admire two large birds flying together, alternating acrobatics and motionlessness in the sky, like two silver kites playing with the wind. Their light-coloured, squat silhouette and their darker head help to identify the short-toed snake eagle. They mainly feed on reptiles (lizards and snakes), which they capture by the head and regurgitate to feed their chicks.

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  Fauna

  White-throated dipper

  The white-throated dipper is easy to spot, as long as you are discreet. It lives along rivers and mountain streams. A small reddish and grey bird, with a short tail, its beak is slender, and it has a white mark from the chin to the breast. This surprising passerine bird is unusual in walking on the river bed in search of food against the current. It lies flat and grips the river bed with its claws, and with its eyes open, protected from the water by a fine membrane, it can spot worms, larva, small shellfish and fish.

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  Geology and geography

  The Chantelouve fault

  In the regions of Chantelouve and Ornon, and continuing further north and south, the Col d'Ornon Fault is a major geological rift that was discovered and interpreted, leading to the completion of the theory of the Alpine chain formation. The geological interpretation of the remarkable site at "La Chalp de Chantelouve" made dating possible and increased understanding of the formation of certain phases of the Alps. In particular, from observations made on the Col d'Ornon Fault, geologists developed the theory of “tumbled blocks" and understood how fundamental geological Alpine accidents took place and their role. Today, many geology students and geologists from France and all over the world come to study this key site.

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  Flora

  White alder forest

  The forest is mainly made up of white alder trees. Their name comes from the fact that the underside of their leaves is covered with a whitish and silvery down. The alder forests grow alongside mountain streams, and to develop need land that is regularly subject to flooding. Due to damming and the removal of materials from the river beds, the white alder is now rare in Europe. The white alder forest in the Col d'Ornon is listed as a site of national interest and is part of the Nature 2000 network. It is the biggest in France, covering some 250 hectares. It can be seen along the Malsanne, the Merdaret and the Lignarre.

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  Flora

  The Col d’Ornon hay meadows

  Agricultural specialists consider that a meadow is natural when it has neither been manured nor ploughed for ten years. These meadows are very rich in flower species, and consequently they are the home of a whole host of pollinating insects, including bees, of course.

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  Vernacular heritage

  The Col d’Ornon ski resort

  The small ski resort of Col d'Ornon has two separate districts.
  First, the Plan du Col (lower down) with its magnificent green slope. Here the resort’s first button lift was opened in 1965, in the early days of popular skiing holidays!
  The Bois Barbet button lift (above), was opened in 1973. With a 450 m descent and an average slope at 36%, this button lift is a real technical feat. Although it no longer really meets the requirements of modern-day comfort, it continues its life as a tricky button lift running to the exceptional red and black slopes.
  In winter, the resort hires four extra employees and works with a network of volunteers, who mobilise in support of the resort, making it a real centre of activity for locals and tourists.

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  Fauna

  Griffon vulture

  In summer, the griffon vultures leave their nesting areas, attracted by the many sheep grazing in the Alpine pastures. They soar up above the mountain crests. Expert scavengers, they have a fundamental role in the food chain, quickly eliminating corpses and so limiting the risk of disease spreading. This task as nature's undertakers has long made them an object of horror and fear for mankind. They are in decline in the Alps, but once again present in the Massif des Ecrins, following programmes to reintroduce them since 1980 in Les Causses and more recently in the Prealps.

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  Flora

  Pansies

  In a carpet of violet flowers, but sometimes yellow, white or multi-coloured, the Alpine pansy brings colour to the grass. It is also known as the mountain violet. Its spur, which can be seen on the back of the flower, is long, and only insects with long sucking pumps, such as butterflies, can gather pollen from them. Violets and pansies are members of the same family. To tell them apart, you need to look at the two side petals: they are turned downwards in violets, and upwards in pansies. Pansies are optimistic violets!

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  Flora

  European larch

  With a rich range of colours varying with the seasons, the fine and soft needles of the larch turn from light green in spring to emerald green in summer and gold in autumn. In winter, they fall, and the majestic larch seems to be dried out. Only the small round cones persist, which birds take to pieces to peck at the seeds. The flowers blooms at the same time as the first supple needles in spring: the female flowers have small raspberry-coloured cones and the male flowers are pale yellow catkins.

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  Flora

  Yellow bellflower

  This campanula is easy to recognise, with its tufts of highly compact yellow flowers. It is one of the few Alpine biannual plants. The seeds scattered in autumn produce large, slender leaves the first year, growing in a rosette shape. The flower only blooms the second year, when it ensures its posterity, then dies. The plant can be found on Alpine grassland (from altitudes of 1,000 to 2,600 m) and on rocky ground and soil that is rich in limestone. Standing on a thick, hollow stalk with a great many leaves, it is 10 to 40 cm tall.

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  Fauna

  Common pipistrelle

  Brown in colour with relatively short ears, the common pipistrelle and the kuhl's pipistrelle are rivals for the title of Europe's smallest bat. The common pipistrelle can be found in a wide range of ecological environments, even above an altitude of 2,000 m. In late 19th century France, school books celebrated the virtues of the bat. They are insectivores, eating a quarter or a third of their weight each day in mosquitoes and other insects. They emit ultrasounds that cannot be heard by the human ear. This technique helps them to find their way in the dark and capture their prey. They are often to be seen around lampposts, hunting insects that are attracted to the light.

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  Architecture

  Villard-Reymond

  Perched at an altitude à 1640 m, this is the highest village in Isère, and the second highest in France. 40 people live here today (but just six permanent residents), while there were almost 300 inhabitants 150 years ago. The fairly gentle slopes and favourable orientation gave rise to pastoral farming, despite the high altitude. The farmers used to work at the Ornon slate works, the women worked at home for glove-makers in Grenoble. Access to the valleys has always been difficult, and in 1960 a cable car was used to take cattle down into the Bourg d’Oisans plain. Today, people live in and visit Villard-Reymond for the quality of its environment.

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  Know-how

  The Ornon slate mines

  Near Ornon, the route regularly unveils slate deposits. These black rock sheets are commonplace here. Slate was for a long time mined, providing a certain amount of prosperity to the village. A century ago, 9 quarries employed 250 people. The slate was used for roofs, but their quality was much in demand, and sometimes was exported. The quarries were worked in the winter, since the workers were farmers the rest of the year. Industrial materials began to compete with natural slate, and mining came to a halt in about 1950.

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  Fauna

  The black grouse

  To observe black grouse in summer, you need to get up early. In France, black grouse (or blackcocks) can only be found in the Alps. In spring, the male with its black plumage and lyre-shaped tail with white under-tails parades to attract females. In winter, they spend most of their time in igloos dug out of the snow to protect themselves from the cold. This is a particularly sensitive period because they cannot replenish the energy used up when they must leave their igloos suddenly if an off-piste skier or show-shoe hiker passes by.

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  Fauna

  Chamois and rock ptarmigan

  While hundreds of sheep graze on the edges of the plateau, higher up, on the nearby crests and summits, chamois and rock ptarmigan may be seen. These animals are the emblems of high altitudes, with the first nicknamed the “goat of the rocks", and the rock ptarmigan sometimes known as the “snow partridge". If you want to get a good look at either of them, you must leave them undisturbed: binoculars or a telescope are essential.

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  Water

  The Taillefer Plateau peat bogs

  The extreme conditions of humidity, acidity and cold holding sway on the lake plateaux mean that organic matter is not fully broken down, so it builds up in hollows to form peat. Peat bogs are extremely useful. They are remarkable, rare, fragile and extremely precious habitats that are characterised by exceptional biodiversity. Here you can find rare species that are adapted to these difficult living conditions (high humidity, low temperatures, poor soils). The most common plant is peat moss (sphagnum) - real sponges that can stock up to 30 times their own weight in water! Peat bogs also play the role of a filter by purifying the air and water. They reduce erosion, help renew the phreatic zones, naturally store carbon and protect from flooding and drought. Under threat from human activity and climate change, this natural heritage is monitored closely.

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  Flora

  Common cottongrass

  Nicknamed “bog cotton", common cottongrass grows in wet and acidic soils, such as the peat bogs of the Taillefer. Common cottongrass, like the rock ptarmigan or the mountain hare, are fragile species, the remnants of a glacial climate and still living in the mountain range. It is a cotton-like plant with white plumes, and fruit gathered into a single, quite thick ball. The smooth stalk is round, unlike the other species of cottongrass, which are triangular.

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  Geology and geography

  The Taillefer Plateau - Natura 2000 site

  Recognised by the European Union for its great ecological interest, the Taillefer Plateau is listed in the Natura 2000 network. The network is made up of a series of European natural sites that are identified for the rarity or fragility of the wild, animal or plant species, and their habitats.

  12,000 years ago, the withdrawal of the glacier from the Taillefer mountains shaped the landscape that can be seen today: a high plateau between 2,000 and 2,500 metres high, with a constellation of lakes mainly produced by old glacier abrasion; a plateau that presses down to the south on the abrupt and bare slopes of the summit of the Taillefer.

  On the plateaux today there are over a thousand wetland and peat bog areas, a remarkable concentration, and one that is rare in the French Alps.

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  Fauna

  The northern emerald

  The northern emerald is a dark-coloured dragonfly with a metallic green or shiny black body, contrasting with its lighter-coloured eyes. It is hard to tell it apart from other species in the genus. In the Ecrins, the species can only be found in the peat bogs of the Taillefer Plateau at an altitude of over 2000m, where it lives with its close cousin, Somatochlora alpestris.