Tour Monte Rosa — Stage 10: Saint-Jacques → Gressoney-Saint-Jean

EEExperienced hikersummer

Distance

17.5 km

Ascent

+1297 m

Descent

−1692 m

Duration

10.5 h

Fitness level

Map & route

GPX track — verify on the ground before hiking

Description

From Saint-Jacques descend along the Evançon to Champoluc, then climb the Cunéaz valley to the Pinter pass (2,777 m), with the four-thousanders of Monte Rosa back on the horizon. The descent through the Loo valley, among Walser pastures, returns to Gressoney-Saint-Jean, closing the loop.

The loop’s last pass is also one of its finest: from the Champoluc valley floor you ascend the Cunéaz valley, dotted with perfectly preserved Walser hamlets, to the tarns below the Pinter pass. From the col, a 360-degree summary of the whole trek: Monte Rosa from Castor to the Lyskamm, the distant Matterhorn, and the Gressoney plains below. The descent through the Loo valley is a beautiful farewell, among stone-roofed chalets and impossibly steep pastures, down to Gressoney-Saint-Jean, where the loop closes facing Monte Rosa. The Crest cable car usefully cuts the first 600 metres.

Key points

Colle Pinter
2777 m · 8 km from start

Earth sciences

Geology & landscape

Monte Rosa is the core of the Penninic nappe of the same name: gneisses and granites of subducted, exhumed European continental crust. Around it the tour crosses the Zermatt-Saas ophiolite zone — green serpentinites, metabasalts and metagabbros, the floor of a vanished Jurassic ocean — outcropping at the Olen, Theodul and Cime Bianche passes. The 2,600-metre Macugnaga east face is the highest wall in the Alps and exposes the nappe in full section.

History & culture

The Walser hamlets of Cunéaz and Loo, today reachable only on foot, were inhabited year-round until the early 1900s: their stadel barns and stone fountains tell of a vertical economy that lasted six centuries.

Water sources

Water at the stage's support points (Saint-Jacques, Gressoney-Saint-Jean). On the high ground and at the passes springs are not guaranteed: fill bottles in the valley and at the huts.

Getting there

Aosta Valley side served by VITA buses and connections from Aosta; many valley heads have summer shuttles. Check seasonal timetables at arriva.it / vita-vda.com.

Warnings