The hay cable

"In front of you, a metal hoop planted at the top of the slope briefly draws your attention. Félix Grosset, a Bessans native and former ranger of the National park knows how to revive this innocuous frame... Bright-eyed, he tells us how, together with his father, he lowered the bales of hay down to the valley, thanks to the cable which stretches from this hoop to the bottom. Mere child’s play thanks to this technique imported from neighbouring Italy in the 1920s. Prior to this cable, a ""harneis"" was used, a sort of sled that contained the ""bouisson"" or more than 300 kg of hay which had to be held back during its conveyance down the slope on a man’s back. As for the cable, it was towards the end of the fifties on a beautiful autumn day that the familiar whistling of the ""hay zip-line"" last resounded as it came to expressly deliver the winter sustenance of the Bessans cows."