On leaving Névache at Ville Haute and until the Rately bridge, walk alongside the Clarée river on the right-hand bank, where the ground is populated by martagon lilies. Next, climb via the Buffère chalets to the pass of the same name (2,427m), marking the entry to the Guisane valley and offering the first panoramic view of the Ecrins. Head uphill to a little rocky promontory to the left of the pass, from where it is possible to see the highest summit, the Barre des Ecrins (4,102m). The pleasant descent along the GR® 57 trail, circling above the Guisane valley, passes through meadowland in which the potentilla delphinensis (“potentille du Dauphiné”) grows, a rather rare plant that can nevertheless be seen around Puy Jaumar. In the surrounding area, you may also spot the Tengmalm’s Owl. After walking close by the Moulette springs that supply water to Monêtier-les-Bains, the trail zigzags its way to the doors of the village through the newly planted forest of St Joseph, the reforestation of which was carried out within the framework of the RTM restoration of mountain terrain project in a bid to combat the dangerously intense erosion process (floods). In Monêtier-les-Bains, the presence of the larch forest becomes even more noticeable in the very architecture: each house has a polished larch balcony, rendered even more beautiful by the sun, which in Guisane is particularly fierce. The village has a rich past owing to its function as a stop-off point on the “little road” of the Lautaret pass connecting Grenoble and Briançon. In fact, it has gained in both pecuniary and cultural terms from its contact with the travellers and tradesmen passing through. But Monêtier’s hour of glory was at the time of the spa treatments organised in the Roman era when the village was still called Sanatio –(“healing”) and which continued until the start of the century. Today, the rotunda built in the XVIIIth century still stands, and the hot springs are once again starting to be used for spas, and even for more touristic purposes (municipal project for a “thermo-leisure” centre). Monêtier was also a Mecca of religious fervour, and the relics of various chapels in the market town (furniture and liturgical ornament collections) can now be admired in the Museum of sacred art in the chapel of St Pierre, which used to be part of the White Penitents confraternity and keeps a collection of the religious treasures of the 30 chapels. Briançon, situated further down the Guisane valley, is the “highest town in Europe” (1,200m). What is more, it boasts an impressive series of fortifications totally adapted to the mountain setting and designed by Vauban to protect the town in 1692.
(Nicolas Aubertin, Gilles Chappaz, Grande Traversée des Alpes)