Val Ferret

Val Ferret is the glacial corridor running north-east from Courmayeur towards the Swiss border, pinned between the Mont Blanc range and the woods of Mont de la Saxe. The valley floor runs beneath the great faces of the Dente del Gigante and the Grandes Jorasses.

Why it matters

This is the Mont Blanc destination's northern valley, the counterweight to Val Veny, and a landscape where protected meadows form a broad valley floor: hay meadows, glacial torrent, and a wall of four-thousand-metre faces — Dente del Gigante, Grandes Jorasses, Aiguille de Triolet and Mont Dolent — rising on the orographic left. It is also a working mountain valley, with huts, farms and open meadows.

What to notice

The valley's hamlets mark changing landscapes: Planpincieux, with its monitored glacier hanging above; Lavachey, quiet among the pines; Arp Nouvaz, where the floor narrows towards Arnouva and the head of the valley. The landscape extends from the balcony above Lavachey toward the Grandes Jorasses, and from the valley head past Pré de Bard and Rifugio Elena to Grand Col Ferret, the pass between Italy and Switzerland. Winter brings a different character to the valley floor.

Context and history

The valley was shaped by the Mont Blanc ice complex, and its Dora di Ferret stream joins the waters of Val Veny near La Palud to form the young Dora Baltea. Its hamlets were seasonal settlements of Courmayeur's mountain economy — pasture, timber and guiding — before tourism reshaped the valley in the twentieth century. The pass to Switzerland kept a transboundary role: Grand Col Ferret is today one of the celebrated crossings of the Tour du Mont Blanc, and the valley floor remains a setting for mountain recreation. Regional management reflects the need to protect its meadows from the pressures of tourism.