Morzinette

L'alpage des Morzinette (the pastures of Morzinette, 1600m asl) have been used to graze heifers (young female cows) in the summer for hundreds of year. These young cows don't need milking and therefore can be left to their own devices for several weeks. Shepherds took them, stayed for a couple of days and left again, checking on them every now and again.

So we set off one very sunny morning (first mistake) to discover Morzinette. The start of the trail looked to be about 30 minutes walk from our flat (I had the tiniest/least detailed map as a guide) and the loop was said to take about 2h30.

Walking at midday in the blazing sun = first mistake

What the map also failed to convey was that we would start the walk at around 900 m asl and climb to 1600m asl in a very short amount of time! The path was very steep and I thought I had almost killed Mr T who had agreed to do the walk despite his back injury and was suffering big time. The first 60 minutes of the walk were hell under the sun! I do not have pictures of those painful moments as I think Mr T would have throttled me had I got my camera out to immortalise the pain (I had chosen this walk after all so this was partially my fault).

Still more blazzing sun and a 700m climb = bigger mistake!

Even Alf was suffering! Every now and again we came across little unoccupied chalets lost in the middle of nowhere where we stopped for a while and let Alf drink in the water trough.

Don't these just look like Hansel and Gretel's gingerbread house?

But we did make it to the top and the views almost made up for the pain getting up there. There still are a few shepherd's huts on the Morzinette pasture which can now be rented out for the weekends. I truly have no idea how you would get a car up there (some people did though...) and there's no way you'd be carrying heavy rugsacks up that path we had taken.

The views from the pastures gave us plenty of photo opportunities. From Alf posing in front of a hut...

... to Alf posing in front of a cross. The area is well known for avalanches and people have built little chapels and put crosses in many dangerous places in the hope of protecting themselves from avalanches in the winter.

You can see Avoriaz, a neighbouring ski station, from the Morzinette pastures. Well, I've just realised you can't really see it on the photo as the buildings are hardly distinguishable from the cliff they are built on. Anyhow, nice views especially on a clear sunny day like this.

In summary, a tough walk but with a beautiful reward at the end of it.

Isn't this a picture perfect alpine scene?

So join me next on a trip to the local market to salivate at pictures of the delicious local produces and to discover what I brought back home from our French holidays!

A bientôt!