Gran Paradiso Tour — Stage 3: Rifugio Vittorio Sella → Eaux Rousses

From the Sella hut climb to the Col Lauson (3,296 m), the tour’s highest point and one of the highest hiking passes in the Alps, with a steep final stretch on scree. A long descent through the Levionaz valley, among chamois and marmots, reaches Eaux-Rousses (1,666 m) in Valsavarenche.

The Col Lauson (or Col Loson) is the highest point of the whole tour and one of Europe’s highest hiking passes: the last two hundred metres climb ledges and scree where a metal cable helps on the most exposed steps. The effort is repaid by a horizon embracing the Grivola, Gran Paradiso and Mont Blanc. The descent through the Levionaz valley is a wildlife safari: chamois, ibex and, with luck, the bearded vulture. At Levionaz Dessous the rangers’ hut recalls that wardens have watched over this ground since 1922. You exit through forest above Eaux-Rousses, on the Valsavarenche valley floor.