Sixt Fer a Cheval and the Giffre Valley, Haute Savoie

A June visit to Geneva and an opportunity to head for the hills on my first day there!

We drove to Sixt Fer a Cheval on Saturday morning - it only takes an hour - and parked at the end of the road near the Horseshoe - a nice parking area with loos, and a stream running along one side, and only €4 for the day which seemed reasonable as the money goes to keeping up the paths, bridges, parking area etc. 

The plan was to walk up to the end of the Giffre Valley which runs to the NE - promised a "fairly level" walk and only about 8 km (you have to be kind to the grannies, great aunts and babies!)

Information board on the side of the car park loos (CP circled in red near the top). The Giffre rises in the cirque of Bout du Monde up in the top right hand corner.

We headed first, through the woods, to the Fer a Cheval (Horseshoe) viewpoint - I tried to take a photo including the planation table as well as the crags and waterfalls but didn't manage it (that's the odd shaped thingummy in the foreground!

Path from the car park up to the viewpoint

Fer a Cheval planation table and crags - there are in excess of a dozen waterfalls, many appearing out of the rock face. Ellie and I tried to count them and got to about 12 or 13! They drop some 1000 m, the peaks behind are another 1600 m up.

Pic de Tenneverge, around 2 900 m, is at the northern end of the horseshoe. It has some striking folds exposed on the vertical rock faces but the light wasn't good in the morning - straight into the sun,

Looking up towards the Giffre Valley from Plan du Lac

This area is called Plan du Lac and there's a small restaurant - duly marked down as the ice cream opportunity later on.
The path - more of a forestry track really - winds gently uphill through the woods past a small pond of amazing blue colour, and then comes out in upland pastures.

The blue pond in the woods

Spiked Rampion Phyteuma spicatum

It became obvious as we walked up the valley that one of the joys of the day would be the flora, starting with Spiked Rampion on the edge of the wood.

Folding on the face of Tennevierge. This is a series of recumbent synclines (closing to the right) and anticlines (closing to the left) which have been transported to the NW (left) as part of the Helvetic Nappe.

At Passerelle de la Samosse there's a bridge across the Giffre where the path, which was running north until now, bears right, and the upper part of the valley (Fond de la Combe and Bout du Monde) come into view.

There's a buvette just a little way further on from here, but we enjoyed our picnic lunch sitting on the little beach just above the left hand bridge post! Plus Oli thought she had lost her phone but found it! Lots of lovely flowers as we walked on up the valley:

Dark Columbine