Courmayeur · Italy

Plan Chécrouit

This meadow was a summer pasture. The cows came up in June, the families who owned them lived in the stone huts until September, and in winter there was no reason to be up here. Courmayeur too was a summer town: climbers arrived in July for the guides, and visitors went down the valley to the hot springs. Winter was the quiet half of the year. Then skiing arrived, and the empty season became the full one. The pasture is now the top of the cable car from the village, and the slopes beneath it follow roughly the lines along which the cattle came down. Both halves of the year still exist. One of the two makes a great deal more noise.

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When did skiing arrive?

The first lifts went up before the Second World War and the system grew steadily afterwards, until Courmayeur was as well known for winter as for summer. The guides who had worked only in the warm months found they had a second job.

Do the summer pastures still work?

Some of them, in the valleys around. Fontina is still made from the milk of cows that spend the summer high up, and the move up in early summer and back down in autumn still happens.

Can you walk up?

Yes, about an hour and a half from Dolonne on a marked path through the woods. It is how everyone arrived before there was a cable car, cows included.

Where it is

Plan Chécrouit, 11013 Courmayeur · 45.79064, 6.94537 · Open in Maps

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