4-day tour of the Plateau d'Emparis from Mizoën

4 steps

1. 

   By walk

   Mizoën

   From Mizoen to the Clots refuge

   History and architecture

   Lake and glacier

   • Medium
   • 1h30
   • 4,7km
   • +358m

2. 

   By walk

   Mizoën

   From Les Clots refuge to the Pic du Mas de la Grave refuge

   Lake and glacier

   Pastoralism

   Panorama

   • Hard
   • 7h
   • 15,9km
   • +1158m

3. 

   By walk

   La Grave

   From the Pic du Mas de la Grave refuge to the refuges of Les Mouterres and Le Fay

   Pastoralism

   Panorama

   Top

   • Hard
   • 8h
   • 16,2km
   • +1136m

4. 

   By walk

   Mizoën

   From the Mouterres and Le Fay refuges to Mizoën

   History and architecture

   Pastoralism

   • Medium
   • 2h30
   • 8,8km
   • +66m

6 points of interest

• 

  

  Fauna

  Common Midwife Toad

  In Spring, a short note emitted at regular intervals resonates around the lake. It is the mating season for this small terrestrial grey toad, mottled with black and brown; it is the male toad’s song to attract the females. A peculiarity of this anuran is that the male uses his back legs to surround the string of ova laid by the female to fertilize them with a jet of semen mixed with urine. In this way he watches over the eggs for several weeks. When they are on the point of hatching, he goes to the water and frees the young frogspawn.

• 

  

  Flora

  Purple Loosestrife

  During the whole summer, the Purple Loosestrife, with its beautiful purple spikes, sprinkles the small Lovitel lake with colour. Considered to be a weed to be destroyed, it does however hold a position among the most useful plants (plants with medicinal properties). Its astringent properties, among others, deem it to be a good remedy against colic in infants when teething. In the kitchen, its young shoots and the flesh of its stalks used to be consumed as a vegetable. The leaves could also be infused like tea.

• 

  

  Lake

  Lovitel Lake

  In addition to being one of the rare wetlands at altitude on the highest part of the Romanche, Lovitel Lake unusually partially dries out during the summer and turns in to a marsh.  In this way it becomes ideal for the development of amphibians who benefit from the absence of fish, their predators. Furthermore, the ecological quality of the environment is remarkable... Several species of great natural value are present at this site, notably the Adder’s Tongue Fern and the Small Meadow Rue, both protected regionally.

• 

  

  Geology and geography

  Petrifying Fountain

  The water that crosses the Emparis plateau which is composed of permeable sedimentary rock, fills up with Calcium bicarbonate. When, lower down, it comes in to contact with the impermeable crystalline rock layer of the Hercynien granitic base, the water follows a fault plane established between two layers and finishes in an aerial waterfall. The dissolved carbonates are transformed into a soft rock called Tuff by their contact with the air which has accumulated there for millennium. This resurgence, or petrifying fountain, is one of the most beautiful in France.

• 

  

  Fauna

  A “plague” of voles

  The European water vole, also called the rat taupier (mole-like rat) in French, is one of the biggest species of voles. Its breeding cycle is such that the species can undergo phases of infestation. Although the causes are not fully understood, this cyclic problem started a few years ago in the valley of La Buffe, at an altitude of 2,000 metres. Although the first signs of the presence of voles in a meadow are undoubtedly the "molehills" they create, when they constitute a plague, they can completely overturn the earth, which could be mistaken for ploughed land.

• 

  

  Flora

  The wetlands of the Rif Tort

  Temperatures on the Emparis plateau are characteristic of a cool steppe climate. It is a very windy plateau with an average annual temperature only just above zero degrees. Winter lasts for eight months, during which it freezes almost every day. The particularly severe temperature constraints in the Rif Tort catchment area have favoured the maintenance of a relic flora adapted to these extreme conditions since the last ice age. «Arctic-Alpine»plant formations are found here. This is a relic flora inherited from advancing glaciers in the Quaternary period, comparable to the flow found on the coasts of the Far North. These formations are particularly rare in Europe and are of very high heritage value. You might see numerous protected species here: bicoloured sedge, sweet grass (a boreal relic species, sole colony in Isère) and the sago pondweed. Livestock grazing in the marsh is necessary because it limits the development of herbaceous plants which could squeeze out the Arctic-Alpine species. A delicate balance needs to be found between the trampling likely to destroy the plant species growing in the low marshes and the passage of the flocks to encourage rejuvenation of the area, and thus maintain this habitat.