The Mercantour National Park comprises a high-altitude section, which forms a natural border between France and Italy. At the feet of the famous Gélas summit, the highest point in this mountain range (3,143 metres), the trail criss-crosses between streams and pinkish limestone.
The aim of the Park is to protect the wild flora and fauna. This section seems to be the land of mouflon sheep and ibexes, species that were reintroduced in the late XXth century. Furthermore, the influence of the Mediterranean, alpine and continental climates create the originality and extreme diversity of the mountain flora.
The Gélas (Mount Gelé, a reference to its frequently heavy snow cover owing to the altitude and the persistence of eternal firn, or traces of old glaciers to be exact) exposes its sheer faces of granite and gneiss, metamorphic shale, rock and submarine lava pushed upwards following the collision of the two tectonic plates at the origin of the emergence of the Alps. That is where we are, in spite of appearances: in the central zone of the “Alpine Orogeny”.
The first ascent dates back to the year 1864 and Count Paolo di San Roberto. It announced the start of tremendous times, with many climbers preferring to start on the side of the Nice Hut, the destination towards which this stage is heading. Overhanging the pass (pas) of the Colomb mountain (pas in patois indicates a passage that can only be crossed by man), the vertical needle in pink rock of the Caïre Colomb peak rises up to over 200 metres in height. Below, the Nice Hut nestles at 2,250 metres in altitude on the banks of the Fous lake, known for its vastness. Since its attachment to the county of Nice in 1945 (it previously belonged to Italy), this zone was the reserve of the royal hunt and was even then considered to be an area of extraordinary wildlife. A pack of wolves that reappeared in 1992 after disappearing 70 years before has actually established its territory in the area. To the North of the hut on the Franco-Italian ridge, the Pagari pass, a name related to the word pagaré, to pay, is still famous for the route it provided in the XIIIrd century for the official and unofficial trade in salt. Passers-by were entrusted with carrying the salt, a precious foodstuff with many uses (food, preservation of dishes, chemical industry, etc.) that was subjected to rigorous political controls from Nice, over to the Piedmont region.
(Sara Zeidler, Gilles Chappaz, Grande Traversée des Alpes)