Sixt Fer à Cheval

Down in the Giffre valley a tiny genuine Haute-Savoyard village has existed in the unique surroundings for the past 9 centuries. The inhabitants of Sixt, used to the sharp relief and to the tough climate took great care of their land and their characters.

Something in Sixt attracts mountain lovers : too many torrents or perhaps the incredible number of peaks on the horizon or the"Fer à Cheval", a grandiose mountain "cirque" where there are over 30 waterfalls.

A personal land...up there in the mountain, the cold is stinging in the winter and the height is energizing in the summer. The open space is soothing and body and mind gradually start a cosy diet.

Contemplative or active, the village of Sixt is equal to its natural sites and accessible to everyone ! Walks in the heart of a 9,200 hectare nature sanctuary with waterfalls and a "cirque", high mountain pastures and cliffs for a background. GR5, GR96, GTA. Sixt is also the land for day walks with an incredible number of itineraries : from the most famous to the most remote, from the most wild to the most accessible to the whole family.

To discover life with nature, find emotions, stone, wood, snow, fire, sun,running water, simplicity : follow us...

Natural sanctuary

Web : www.asters.asso.fr

Strong points : the struggle between man and mountain. A mountain with many underground rivers (karst).

Legal protection : the territory was registered as a nature santuary by a ministry decree on November 2, 1977.

Demarcation : its surface is 9200 ha, it's the largest sanctuary in the county. It covers 3/4 of the Sixt commune and part of the Passy commune near the Anterne lake and pass. The northern boudary goes along the crest, the swiss frontier from the Golette peak to Great Mount Ruan. It then bends down the Ruan and Prazon glaciers on the eastern side, along the Tenneverges ridges, from the Finive and the Cheval Blanc headland. From then on, it adjoins the Passy sanctuary along the Villy ridges and the Anterne pass, goes beyond the Anterne and Sales Sites to the edge of the Platé domain.The Salvadon mountain, on the right bank of the Giffre, facing Sixt, the administrative center of the department,is included in it.The GR5 goes through the south of the department.

Interest : The landscapes spread from the bottom of the Giffre valley, at an altitude of 750 meters, overlooked by not very hospitable vertical jagged calcareous cliffs the most famous of which look down 2000 meters on the Fer à Cheval cirque.Underground streams come out from ledges or narrow cracks and fall down to the bottom of the valley.

Men have asserted themselves for centuries in this austere place, facing great dangers to cultivated these strips of "suspended fields"; the crop was thrown down from the top of the cliffs, collected on huge "sleighs" on pulled over to the houses which were covered in "travaillons".

At the foot of the cliffs, working in the forests, that were regularly destroyed by avalanches, was a source of local craft industry for a long time.

Although nowadays tourism has developed, the "calcareous Hautes-Alpes" are difficult to penetrate, accessible only to hunters and mountaineers and have remained wild. The Ibex (a protected specie), the chamois, many diurnal birds of prey : eagles, falcons, owls, great horned owls, pygmy owlets, grouse,and hares are usually found there. The forest and the flora are spread out depending on the orientation and, depending on the altitude, from the hill and mountain level with their mixed forests to the alpine pastures.

The unique and particular interests of various areas of this sanctuary comes from the extraordinary development of an undergroud river network due to an old karst on the surface wich goes through various levels of the "calcareous Hautes-Alpes" domain.

Its lapiez, avens, lakes, galleries and underground rivers which come out on the surface make it one of the most famous potholing places.

If you love Haute-Savoie, its lakes, hills, mountains, glaciers, falls, forests and pastures; if you're a climber, a potholer, a walker, contemplative, young or not so young, if you come from somewhere around or are travelling, you'll always discover numerous new sides to it.

With its usual guests : its flora depending on the altitude, its specific fauna : the chamois, ibex and birds : tetralyres, alpine choughs, northern ravens, swallows, golden eagles. They all wake up with the thaw in the spring : after a long hibernation, the marmot comes out of its winter burrow; the stoat, the hare and the snow partridge all exchange their white coat that merges with the snow for an earth coloured coat...

Then, after the summer (which very short in the moutains), the trees and shrubs cover themselves in gold and copper just before they start the slower life winter imposes them, as if they wanted to catch the last beams of the setting sun. Everyone goes back inside for the winter. Even man. By his genius, he has learnt to adapt to all the seasons and to the diversity of nature, at any time, though the struggle that was often hard, economy being often based on agropastoral activity or craft, building unusually shaped housings in harmony with the climate and the setting.

The texts we've chosen to present the nature sanctuary of Sixt were written by the Haute-Savoie nature sanctuary scientific committee. Head-quaters : Le Lavancher 74400 Chamonix. They are taken from the "Instructions and Explanations of the 1:100.000 scale map of Haute-Savoie nature sanctuaries".