High Route 2 — Stage 13: Champorcher → Crest

From Champorcher, climb La Leigne valley to Colle della Fricolla and descend to Crest-Damon.

The penultimate stage through the woods on the Ayasse’s true right side: chestnut and beech forests and half-abandoned hamlets that tell of mountain depopulation. Dry-stone walls and terraces witness centuries of vertical farming; the Crest Damon gîte is the base for the last night up high. This is the quiet, contemplative stage of the high route: few other walkers, the rustle of beech leaves, and the steady reminder — in every ruined wall and abandoned terrace — of how densely these slopes were once farmed and inhabited.