Démant circuit

Around the hamlet of La Colle, you may be lucky enough to find some star gentian (Gentiana cruciata). This is an herbaceous plant which grows in clumps; it has erect stalks, large, pointed leaves and blue flowers with 4 petals, which are grouped under the upper leaves. This gentian serves as a “nest” for the mountain Alcon blue butterfly (Maculinea rebeli): in this picture, you can distinctly see the eggs laid by the insect.

To understand this landscape, one needs to go beyond the appearance and look carefully at it to spot the clues pointing at agricultural life which, throughout the centuries, shaped it. Meadows scattered with fruit trees, barns, pastoral huts and ruins of military camps are so many visual traces of the activities of the past.During the Napoleonic period, many owners shared the irrigated meadows as well as the cultivated land. Little by little, cultivation was abandoned in favour of pasture.In 1954, the Robion family from Beuil still came to cut the hay. And then, pastoralism went into decline. Pasture zones were gradually taken over by broom and, in places, trees such as Scotch pine or larch blocked the access to the former military camp.

In 1467, under pressure from the community, Count Grimaldi of Beuil accorded the right for people to cut down trees on the mountains of Mounier described at the time as "Alpes" (pastures), proving that the forest was present there. In 1624, the Duke of Savoie has the trees cleared from the last spinneys on Mounier to build galleys in the port of Villefranche. Today, the few thousand transhumant sheep maintain this desert-like landscape. Yet in place, small larch trees are trying to establish themselves. Let us bet that studies carried out on the pastures by the Park alongside the shepherds will improve the situation from the point of view of protecting nature.

Barely have you gone over the limestone bar with its scents of lavender and broom before you are in the Alps. At this altitude, flowers adapt to survive, becoming perennial, stunted, colourful and strong smelling. Among the species present, Berardia Lanuginosa and alpine bellflower are endemic to the southern Alps and are protected by the law. In the world of plants, the flower is the mist elaborate reproductive organ that nature as created. How could you not respect that!

If you want to observe marmots, in the valley below the path which runs alongside the agricultural terraces, you will need to be quiet, attentive and position yourself upwind, then look in the meadows for the holes they make, with fresh earth around them and linked by a network of tracks. With the help of a pair of binoculars, you will have no problem spotting same marmots and their young eating, playing or sunning themselves.A long, repeated call signifies that an unfamiliar presence has been detected (very probably you). A single sharp call means that the golden eagle is around, looking for its favourite prey. In this case, they all dash off to their burrows!