‘This is probably the wildest place in the whole of the Vallée des Belleville,” says Roland, our guide, sweeping one arm across a bank of saw-toothed peaks as though conducting a great, brawny orchestra. My husband, two sons and I are midway through a four-day stretch of the Grand Tour de Tarentaise hiking trail in the French Alps, and we’ve stopped near the top of Varlossière, a roadless side valley among a great arc of mountains that runs to the west of the ski resorts of Val Thorens, Les Menuires and Saint-Martin-de-Belleville. Hiking up here from Gittamelon, a rustic, summer-only mountain refuge in the neighbouring Vallée des Encombres, we’ve paused to exhale breath, and to inhale the primeval views.
