Courmayeur · Italy
Why the village stands where it does
Look at where the old houses are, and then look at the slope above them. The old centres of this valley do not stand in the most convenient places: they stand on knolls, behind rock spurs, under the shelter of thick forest, and almost never at the foot of a gully or on the wide bed of a torrent. This is not scenery, it is memory. An avalanche and a flood take the same line every time, and a community that lost houses once did not rebuild them in the same spot. The wood above the village belongs to the same reasoning: in many alpine communes felling it was forbidden by statute, centuries before any forestry law existed, because those trees held the snow. The names confirm it: in patois a number of places are still called by words meaning landslide, avalanche, water that breaks. The newer houses, built once machines made the valley floor convenient, have not always followed the same caution.
Go deeper
How do I recognise an avalanche path?
By the vegetation, even in summer. An avalanche track reads as a stripe of missing or different forest, with young trees all of one age, or flexible shrubs where tall timber should be. At the bottom there is often a cone of debris and broken wood. In winter the signal is different: cornices on the ridge, accumulation in the lee of the wind, slopes between thirty and forty-five degrees, which is the band in which most avalanches start. Anyone going off-piste learns to read it before learning anything else.
Do protective forests still exist?
Yes, and today they have a technical definition and a map. A direct protection forest is one standing between a hazard and what is to be protected, and it is managed so that it goes on doing so: felling is light and selective, the turnover of tree generations is encouraged, and timber is left on the ground where it helps hold the snow. It costs less than an avalanche barrier and lasts longer, provided somebody looks after it. The idea is centuries old, but the upkeep is modern and continuous.
And today, can anyone build anywhere?
No. Alpine communes hold hazard maps that divide the territory by level of avalanche, landslide and flood risk, and those maps decide where building is allowed, where only renovation is allowed, and where nothing is. They are the work of geologists and snow scientists, revised after every significant event. In practice it is the same knowledge held by whoever chose the knoll six hundred years ago, written in a form that can be consulted at the town hall instead of having to be inherited.
Where it is
More stories in Courmayeur
- The Aiguille Blanche
- The Aiguille Noire
- Duke of the Abruzzi Alpine Museum
- The Brenva Spur
- The Guides' House
- Church of Saint Pantaléon
- The quiet col
- The Col de la Seigne