Le Sentier du Chamois & le Grand Désert

It's wonderful when something lives up to its reputation or better, and today the famous Sentier du Chamois was beyond all our expectations. From the fantastic Cabane du Mont Fort we took the high level traverse, mostly a foot wide track above some hair-raising drops, for 6km or so that stuck fairly accurately betwixt the 2400m & 2500m contours until a final climb to the Col du Termin. The views to the Grand Combin were astounding.
From here we continued (in the general direction of) back on ourselves on an equally airy path to the Col du Louvie and then entered the high glacial wilderness of the Grand Désert. Whilst barren and overtly inhospitable there was a stark beauty to it, and as a guide a realisation that this is a place where it could go truly, horribly, wrong. I spent a long while simply sitting and gaining that vital 'sense' of the place. Due to the heatwave in the Alps the once gentle streams are roaring - idyllic tarns are now lakes and bridges are missing - counter-intuitive I know, but its all to do with snow melt and glaciers. Still the thigh deep glacial river crossing at 2900m was an experience - one we soon followed up with the most amazing encounter with Ibex, a large family group of 24+ with a very large ram leading the way. I've never gotten so close.
From there it was over the Col du Prafleuri to the Cabane of the same name and a well earned panache.

All in all, another amazing day in the mountains.