The Tour des Écrins in the Hautes-Alpes is one of Europe’s finest long-distance walks, and offers a chance to reflect on how best to live alongside nature
The Tour des Écrins in the Hautes-Alpes is one of Europe’s finest long-distance walks, and offers a chance to reflect on how best to live alongside naturewas established in 1995 to “monitor the natural dynamics of ecosystems” with all human influence removed. This so-called wilderness area was one of the first of its kind in Europe.across a dazzling, teal-hued lake surrounded by pine-strewn peaks. I was immediately fascinated.
Orchards and allotments are ripe and full. Cattle graze in open pasture on the margins of the villages. We’d expected a high alpine walk, so the ubiquity and variety of woodland between cols and settlements is a surprise. Huge stands of aspen shimmer on the hillsides, and alder, sycamore, beech, pine and birch line the rivers. Forest cover in France is at least double that of the UK, and unlike our own, the majority is broadleaf.
We don’t see or hear them, but wolves are also present, evidenced by temporary electric fences, the odd shepherd and theirworking dogs in the hanging valleys. The two I speak to are philosophical about the balance to be struck. Aline Robert clearly relishes the connection born from watching over several hundred sheep in the mountains. Justine Carpentier recalls losing 150 of her flock to wolf attacks, but says: “The wolf is not good or bad – it’s just like the weather.
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