We went for a drive with friends towards the French/Italian border on a recent weekend. We discovered this place in the canton of Valais which is out of the pages of Nat Geo ! Located less than 2 hours drive from home, it is near Vernayaz at the foothills of the Swiss/French Alps just before the town of Martigny.
There is an entrance fee of CHF7 per person to use the walkway. We were the only ones there for the first 20 or so minutes.
Nets were installed to prevent people getting hurt from falling rocks.
The water cut through the rocks and formed this gorge over the years and the sides of the gorge has been polished. It was smooth to touch like a pebble.
I wonder how high would the water level rises after winter when the snow or glacier melts. I would not be surprised that it is dammed upstream for hydroelectric power generation.
We could not figure out how to get to the abandoned bridge above us. That bridge belongs to a Indiana Jones movie.
Some sections were so narrow. You could almost touch the other side. The gorge was shady and cool, on that day very windy.
The water is shallow and yet so blue. It came down from the Swiss/French Alps and fed Lac Leman.
There were fish but I could not catch it by the shutter speed of my camera.
The walkway is a dead end (see photo below). At the end, there is a small bench. According to the map, the gorge continues for miles. I wished the walkway is longer because there is a sense of mystery around every bend.
This gorge is neither well known nor well promoted but it is stunningly beautiful. I am a newcomer to the area, maybe there are lots of streams like this one, and I am just making a big fuss.
It is clearly visible on Google map too.
[googlemaps http://maps.google.ch/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=46.129709,7.043009&spn=0.011168,0.027874&t=h&z=16&output=embed&w=425&h=350]
One response to “Gorge du Trient, Valais”
Lovely pics! I wanna go as well. It made me think of the three gorges in China 🙂