Between Queyras and Ubaye, people have been using the trail for a long time, as Ceillac and the hamlet of Maljasset are linked by a common faith and shared work.
On leaving Ceillac, the GR® 5 long-distance hiking trail climbs back up the Mélézet valley to the heart of a forest of larch trees from which the area, the stream and the campsite draw their name. Wayside shrines, secluded places of prayer for passers-by, line the route. The trail gains in altitude and circumvents the Pisse waterfall, a majestic cascade falling from 280m. Walk alongside its stream outlet and you will see the Miroir lake, in which the Font Sancte peak with its rocky glaciers (ice coated in metres of scree) is mirrored. Pass below a ski-lift of the resort village of Ceillac, inaugurated in February 1969, and the trail arrives at the lake of Ste Anne, patroness of sailors. Two children are said to have ventured out on it on a raft and, stuck in the middle, their panic-stricken parents called out to the saint for help. The breeze then brought them back safely and a chapel was erected right in the middle of this mountain cirque in honour of Ste Anne. It was destroyed in 1918 by an avalanche and then rebuilt in 1920. This saint, said to control rainfall, is also called upon when drought ravages the harvest. A pilgrimage organised each year (26th July) in this aim brings together the people of Ceillac from the Queyras area, and of Maurin from the Ubaye area. In the past, they exchanged seed and rye on these occasions to vary production. Today, they exchange stories and various dishes (blue cheese from Ceillac and doughnuts from Maurin).
The Girardin pass marks the exit from the regional park and the entrance into the Ubaye valley. It is a strategic lookout point: towards the East at the foot of the Tête de Girardin summit, the Favière optical station was erected in 1901 to transmit Morse-coded light messages. It then became an astronomical site, and then a precarious refuge for hikers. The panoramic view offered by this pass explains the choice of location: the Haute-Ubaye valley, attached once and for all to the kingdom of Provence in 1713 by the European treaty of Utrecht, spreads out to the East and the Queyras valley to the West. Towards Maljasset, which means “bad shelter” in patois owing to the risks of avalanches and flooding, the trail straightens out on a stony north-facing slope. The place is called “Les Bachasses”, by the name of the fountains carved in larch, the preferred material for numerous wells or watering holes for sheep.
The three hamlets of this little valley by the name of “Maurin” (maure = black, dark) are situated along the Ubaye, an 80km-long stream joining the Franco-Italian Longet pass to the lake of Serre-Ponçon: “La Barge” further downhill with its typical architecture in stone and slate (unlike in the Queyras, where larch and cembran pine predominate), Maljasset, a mixture of secondary residences and hostels, and Combe-Breymond further up. There are a great many chapels and mission crosses, testifying to the hostility of the environment, which only faith and mysticism make it possible to overcome.
(Sara Zeidler, Gilles Chappaz, Grande Traversée des Alpes)