🇫🇷 GR5 Grande Traversée des Alpes – Col de la Vanoise

Location

Overview

Highlights

• Passes through Vanoise National Park, France's first national park (established 1963), home to a large reintroduced ibex population
• Col de la Vanoise (2,516m) offers views of Grande Casse (3,855m), the highest peak in the Vanoise massif
• Part of the roughly 700km GR5 Grande Traversée des Alpes linking Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean at Nice
• A chain of small glacial lakes (Lacs de la Vanoise) just below the pass is a common camp/refuge stop

Good to know

• SeasonThe pass is usually snow-free from July-September, but snowfields can persist into late June in some years.
• SafetyAfternoon thunderstorms are common in the Vanoise in summer; cross the exposed pass in the morning.
• RulesCamping is banned in the core zone of Vanoise National Park except near refuges, and even then only from 7pm-9am with prior notice.
• ·The refuge right at the pass (Refuge de la Vanoise) books out early in August - reserve ahead.

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