IN THE VAL D’ALEFRED
Walnut and a great variety of other trees gave shadow to our path and fresh vigor to our limbs, while below, in a sublime gorge, thundered the torrent, whose waters took their rise from the snows we hoped to tread on the morrow.
The mountain could not be seen at La Ville, owing to a high intervening ridge: we were now moving along the foot of this to get to the châlets of Alefred—or, as they are sometimes called, Aléfroide—where the mountain actually commences. From this direction the subordinate but more proximate peaks appear considerably higher than the loftier ones behind, and sometimes conceal them. But the whole height of the peak, which in these valleys goes under the name of the “Grand Pelvoux,” is seen at one place from its summit to its base—six or seven thousand feet of nearly perpendicular cliffs.
The châlets of Alefred are a cluster of miserable wooden huts at the foot of the Grand Pelvoux, and are close to the junction of the streams which descend from the glacier de Sapenière (or du Selé) on the left, and the glaciers Blanc and Noir on the right. We rested a minute to purchase some butter and milk, and Sémiond picked up a disreputable-looking lad to assist in carrying, pushing and otherwise moving the wine-cask.
THE GRAND PELVOUX DE VAL LOUISE
Our route now turned sharply to the left, and all were glad that the day was drawing to a close, so that we had the shadows from the mountains. A more frightful and desolate valley it is scarcely possible to imagine: it contains miles of boulders, débris, stones, sand and mud—few trees, and they placed so high as to be almost out of sight. Not a soul inhabits it: no birds are in the air, no fish in the waters: the mountain is too steep for the chamois, its slopes too inhospitable for the marmot, the whole too repulsive for the eagle. Not a living thing did we see in this sterile and savage valley during four days, except some few poor goats which had been driven there against their will.