Until the end of the 19th century, the region of Crans-Montana was only inhabited as far as the upper villages. From 1300m, you would have found "mayens" (a little chalet belonging to the pastures) and above them, the alpine pastures where cattle were brought to graze. The hike begins by cablecar, then the walker crosses mountain pastures from where they have magnificent views, and continues to the Colombire Alp Museum, which explains the history of transhumance.

Statistics

2 - 3

hrs

202

m

610

m

9

max°

Difficulty

FATMAP difficulty grade

Moderate

Description

This hike, which begins with a cable car ride, will take you through these high altitude pastures, from one to the other, passing through magnificent views of the 4,000 opposite.

You will see how much all the green non-forested land has been used by livestock farmers.

Your journey will end at the Ecomuseum of the Hamlet of Colombire above Aminona.

An opportunity to go back in time and discover how hotels replaced the mayens of the farmers of yesteryear in 1893 on this magnificent Haut-Plateau.

Until the end of the 19th century, the Crans-Montana region was inhabited as far as the upper villages, the main towns of the communes located between two rivers, the Lienne and the Raspille.

Above the altitude of 1300 were the mayens, even higher, above 1750 metres, were the mountain pastures.

In Mayen, families were still living in a homogeneous way.

Higher up, however, in the mountain pastures, it was only the farm staff who lived there for a few weeks a year to graze the cattle, under rather precarious conditions.

Only the natives knew about these high altitude territories.

Things have changed with the passage of transalpine travellers through the Rhône valley, with the arrival of the railway.

These visitors wanted to see things from above.

Up there, we noticed that upstream of the agricultural slopes and forest areas, there was a magnificent and vast plateau of mayens, that above it the mountain pastures were green and that the mountain that dominated them did not require any equipment or experienced guide to travel it.

So we came here on holiday.

It was soon noticed that the air was particularly clean, the place very sunny and the climate healthy.

It is therefore from the Mayen floor, then the mountain pastures, that the Montana-Vermala resort first, then Crans, then Crans and finally Crans-Montana developed. Equipment Good walking shoes. As the weather changes rather quickly at high altitude, it would be better to bring an extra layer of warm clothing.