Tour du Mont Blanc — Stage 4: Rifugio Elena → La Fouly

From Rifugio Elena a steady climb leads to the Grand Col Ferret (2,537 m), the Italian-Swiss border and the watershed between the Mediterranean and the North Sea. A long grassy descent through the Swiss Val Ferret, past the La Peule alp, ends in the village of La Fouly (1,610 m).

The climb to the Grand Col Ferret is steady and always well graded: an hour and a half of grassy switchbacks with the Pré de Bar glacier sinking gradually behind you. At the pass — where a boundary stone marks the border — the landscape changes character at once: the Swiss side is softer, all pastures and rolling knolls, grazed by the cows of the La Peule alp, where you can buy alpine cheese. The long descent to La Fouly follows the young Drance through larches and clearings; the village has a shop, hotels and buses to Orsières.