7-day Tour du Taillefer
The tour du Taillefer has 7 stages (with the option of just 6).It starts from Alpe du Grand Serre (a departure from the village of Valbonnais is also possible). You start off by following the Roizonne valley to the charming little Alpine village of Rif Bruyant. On the second day, you explore the Roizonne valley and its villages, but also cross the first col of the trip, the Col de Plan Collet (1,356 m), which opens up a view over the Dévoluy and Les Ecrins, and takes you to the Valbonnais valley.On the 3rd and 4th days, you walk along the Bonne and Malsanne valleys, through villages, hamlets, fields and woods, and rise slowly up to Col d'Ornon (1,360 m).From stage 5, you leave the bottom of the valley for the high mountains, via the Col de Corbières (1,926 m), and the small mountain village of Villard-Reymond (second highest village in France).The next day, you go down towards the Lignarre torrent, which you cross at the village of La Palud, before going up towards the hamlet of Ornon and tackling the ascent leading to the Taillefer refuge (2,056 m). You begin to explore these magnificent landscapes and the special atmosphere of the lake plateau, which you will fully experience the next day for your last stage, which takes you back to the resort of Alpe du Grand Serre.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.