Kev Reynolds - Walking in the Alps

There is a wild sense of remoteness about the southernmost group of the Alpine chain that belies its proximity to the Mediterranean. In little more than an hours drive from the hotels and palm trees of Nice, for example, it is possible to be wandering through uninhabited valleys as rough and rocky as any in Europe, where the skyline is stark and uncompromising and where trails can so easily vanish in a low drifting mist.

Moulded against the grain the Maritime Alps spread across the general alignment later developed by the South-West Alps, their configuration here running from north-west to south-east and with the Franco-Italian border being such as to tilt the French side toward the south, thus providing Riviera resorts with a protective wall. Hot air drifts up from the Mediterranean to be confronted now and then by cooler airstreams flowing south from snow peaks of Dauphin. Where the two meet frequent thunderstorms occur, and as the first of the loftier mountains, Mont Bgo (2872m) in the Merveilles attracts more than its fair share. Being a ferritic peak lightning strikes are commonplace, and it is this high incidence of lightning activity that is put forward as one possible theory to explain the huge number of Bronze Age rock engravings discovered nearby the engravers being intent on placating the mountain gods.

By comparison with ranges farther north, the Maritime are not high mountains, for none of the summits reaches 3500 metres the highest being Punta (or Cima) dellArgentera at 3297 metres. The lower valleys are sub-tropical, the upper regions a wilderness of stone. There are no glaciers of any extent, snowfields are relatively insignificant and many of the more notable peaks are accessible to walkers with some mountain experience, without calling on technical climbing skills. Yet the Maritime Alps are truly Alpine for all that, with numerous jade-green tarns, great screes and boulder-choked corries, and spiky, rugged little rock peaks that not only provide sport for the climber drawn by the promise of a favourable climate and the odd day spent festering by the sea, but also create a backcloth of considerable charm to a wilderness camp adopted by the walker seeking somewhere a little different, a rarely-publicised region (outside of France, that is) that is not without its challenge.

The Valle des Merveilles is a wonderland of rock and water

The group is a geological hotch-potch. In places limestone dominates. Elsewhere gneiss, sandstone, metamorphic schist and outcrops of granite form the base materials of which the mountains are composed. Of wildlife chamois are the most numerous and on the Italian flank alone there are estimated to be somewhere in the region of 3500 individuals. The Italian Alpi Marittime also claims some 650 ibex, thanks to a programme of reintroduction from the Gran Paradiso area that began in 1920. Alpine marmots abound, and under the protection of the Mercantour National Park, mouflons a form of wild mountain sheep have been introduced from Corsica. Wild boar and wolf, now rare in most other regions of the Alps, are said still to inhabit some of the lower valleys on the Italian side of the border, while the birdlife is also rich and varied. But it is the flora of the region that is so outstanding. The three small reserves of Argentera, Palanfr and Alta Valle Psio claim more than 3000 species of plants, many of which are extremely rare, while the Mercantour heartland contains half the native flowers of France, and around 40 that are unique to the area.

The official designation of the range gives Col de Tende as its south-eastern limit and Col de Larche forming the northern link with the Cottian Alps. In truth, however, the mountains extend eastward from Col de Tende as the Ligurian Alps, a definition not always recognised on maps of the area, and dismissed by Coolidge (whose classification of the Alpine chain in the 19th century largely stands today) for their lack of Alpine characteristics. The heart of the range contains the highest summits and probably the best walking opportunities, and is neatly concentrated on the adjoining Parco Naturale dellArgentera on the Italian slope, and Parc National du Mercantour on the French side, the latter being the most recently designated Alpine park in France, established in 1979 against a great deal of locally-generated opposition.

Within the 68,500 hectares of the park no building is permitted, hence the controversy that surrounded its formation, for plans had been proposed to create a downhill ski area there. So it is that walkers and climbers may roam today among uncluttered landscapes and enjoy a degree of solitude the more remarkable for its absence in some of the better-known ranges further north.

Between the Mercantour and the sea the Provenale countryside is characteristically cleft by narrow gorges scoured out by tributaries of the Var, and through which minor roads provide access from Nice. St-Martin-Vsubie, with a goodly assortment of hotels, pensions, gtes dtape and campsites, holds the key to exploration of the eastern Mercantour; St-Sauveur-sur-Tine and St-tienne-de-Tine do likewise for the central and north-western sections. Well take the Haute Vsubie first, since most of the highest mountains are located here along the Italian border.