Hiking and Cooking in the South of France

From the village, we followed the GR54  to the parking (Charvet), forked right leaving the GR and ascended along a track to the footbridge over the torrent. On the other side of  the bridge, the path to Brunichard and Les Sagnières was available but there was a large herd of livestock all over. Not to disturb them, we continued straight to Les Grangettes, an old high-altitude hamlet mostly in ruins. We decided to continue upstream  along the valley. We recrossed the Grand Tabuc and ascended along a dirt track then a path. The scenery was impressive. There was still a lot of water in the torrent. 

In the upper valley, we reached an area named Champ Vieux. It consisted of large boulders, high grass and wet stretches. Apart from the first Ecrins Glaciers in front of us, it was actually less interesting than the Grand Tabuc Torrent banks. It marked our turning point today. The path continued to Pas de l’Ane and Col des Grangettes.

We descended a bit for our break in a nice spot, then continued along the right bank of the torrent all the way to the lower bridge. Crossing it, we merged with our initial itinerary and hiked back to le Monêtier.

In France, even a tender beef fillet for oven-roasting is wrapped in a strip of white bacon fat. This is done to avoid the drying out of the meat during roasting and reducing the need of basting. So even if you want to have your meat very lean don’t remove this fat before slicing the fillet. I have been to French restaurants which serve the sliced meat with this strip of fat and strings on the plates, up to clients to remove it before eating.

I prefer my beef fillet medium-rare so generally 20 minutes per 500 g meat is sufficient in an oven preheated to 200° C roast. The roasting time also depends on the thickness of the fillet. Let rest for 20 minutes before slicing.

Serve the fillet with your choice of two vegetables. In the photo, the meat is served with pan fried carrots and quickly boiled green beans. Serve this festive meal with your best red wine.

2 servings

Take the fillet out of the fridge and let stay in room temperature for about 30 minutes.

Start preparing the carrots. Wash and cut them into longer strips. Warm 1 tbsp. olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and start sautéing the carrots, turning occasionally. When the carrots are almost soft add the shallots and garlic and continue cooking for about 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200° C roast.

Place the beef fillet in an oven-proof dish which is not too large nor too small for the cut. Roast for 20 minutes. Remove the meat from the oven onto a cutting board and let res for 20 minutes before slicing.

Meanwhile prepare the sauce and cook the green beans. For the sauce, prepare 200 ml beef stock in a saucepan. Deglaze the roasting dish with 100 ml red wine scraping in all the bits that cling onto the dish. Add this to the stock and cook until reduced by half. Grind in some black pepper.

Slice the fillet and remove the fat strip and strings around it. Place fillet slices on the plates and pour over the sauce. Divide the carrots and green beans on the plates. Decorate with some fresh herbs.

If there are any meat leftovers these can be used in a salad next day or added to a simple pasta sauce.

Starting from the col, we headed northeast along a good signposted trail which followed a ridge to Col des Cibières (2525 m). At the col, which was a crossroads of several trails, we took the middle one (not signposted) towards la Gardiole. The final stretch was steep and rocky. On the summit, there was an observation post. We still had partly clear skies and were able to admire the 360° panorama of the southern Alps (The Ecrins Massif, Mont Thabor, Galibier etc).

From the mountain peak, we located the descending trail to the east then south. In the beginning, it was very steep with sliding rocks and gravel. In fact too steep for photography! We reached the main trail to Col de l’Oule (2546 m), and forked left (northeast). From the col, we descended a bit towards Grand Lac de l’Oule to a spot where we had a good view of the Alpine lake during our picnic.

We returned to the col then returned to the starting point along a path passing  some swampy stretches (black dotted line on the map). Most walkers seemed to use this option to the lake and back.

We had previously hiked twice from the hamlet of Valpréveyre (1850 m), to the mountain passes of Malaure and Urine, both on the Italian border.

Today’s goal was Col de Bouchet (2626 m). The mountain pass is at the foot of Bric Bouchet (2997 m), an impressive summit dominating the landscape east of Valpréveyre.

The first part of the itinerary was the same as to Col de Malaure. We were surrounded by pristine nature soon after leaving the hamlet. At about 2000 m elevation, at the confluence of the Bouchet and Malaure torrents we came to a big mass of snow (It was early July!), apparently after an avalanche the previous winter. We hiked over it and saw our trail which dove into a larch wood. We reached a crossroads where fading yellow arrows instructed us to fork left. It turned out to be just a shortcut as we remembered that the crossroads with a signpost was a bit higher up.

We continued the ascent, heading northeast in open high-alpine terrain with Bric Bouchet in front of us. We passed another crossroads where we took the right-hand path. The left-hand path went to Col de Valpréveyre north of Bric Bouchet.

The last stretch to the col was very rocky and steep. We were lucky with the weather and could admire the panorama on both sides of the border. On the Italian side, there was a refuge named Nino Sardi just below the col. There was a half-tame ibex. The nebbia (fog/cloud on the mountain relief here)  reached the pass when we were already descending. We saw some marmots on the alpine meadow and met just a few other hikers.

We used the same itinerary back to our starting point, now via the signposted Malaure/Bouchet crossroads.