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 Dwight Peck's personal website
Weekends
at Salanfe
The
"other side" of the Dents du Midi
Mid-July
2007, Kristin's visiting, and we're looking for a venue with nice quiet mountain
views in the twilight hours.
You
may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a
good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught
up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go. 
After
excellent long weekends in recent years at Iffigenalp,
Engstligenalp, and Tanay,
this time we're headed for the auberge (inn) at the Lac
de Salanfe on the far side of the Dents du Midi. Teny's packing up and
Kristin's ready to go in the little car park near the campground at Van d'en Haut
(1394 metres) in the narrow Vallon de Van, which
is up a narrow mountain road above Salvan in the
Swiss canton of Valais, which is up a semi-narrow mountain road above Martigny,
the ancient crossroads between the river Rhône and numerous valleys up to
Verbier, the Col du Saint Bernard, the Col de la Forclaz, etc. and etc.
Friedrich Nietzsche
the Volkswagen is resting quietly behind Kristin's left shoulder. Awaiting our
return four days hence.
The
auberge at the Lac de Salanfe differs from some scenic mountain weekend hotels
in that you need to walk there, straight up, carrying all your cosmetics, reading
material, evening dress and/or dinner jacket, extra wine bottles for the hotel
room, and several changes of underclothing. And your meds.
We've
just passed a young couple courting whilst practicing their rock climbing, and
some of the extra books and magazines for the evenings on the terrace at Salanfe
are beginning to seem superfluous and self-indulgent.
From
a little buttress about halfway up, not long before Happy Hour, we gaze back down
at the Vallon de Van and the car park.
Next
come the "escaliers".
We're
making our way through a stairway system thoughtfully laid on through the cliffs.
We're probably at about 1700m now and we've been tossing a few Victorian novels
over the side into the ravine.
Finally,
the dam at the Lac de Salanfe (1950m), with the Cime de l'Est of the Dents du
Midi in the centre background.
The auberge at Lac de Salanfe, as we straggle in with
tongues hanging out. The plateau of Salanfe was a big flat alpage and pasturage,
first mentioned in the 14th century, with a considerable amount of primitive industrial
mining (chiefly for arsenic) high up on the southern hillsides between 1904 and
1928 (709 tonnes of arsenic and 53kg of gold).
And
then they built the dam -- it went into service in 1952 and is supplied by an
underground funicular rail line from Miéville on the banks of the Rhône.
Here's
the hotel, seen from the chapel on a hillock just above it, with (in front of
it) something to do with the funiculaire. As we choose to believe that we are
too old for sleeping in 50-bed dortoirs, or dormitories, we've booked the room
just upstairs on the far right. Joe and Teny are two doors down to the left.
(It
feels awkward to be on the far right of anything, but seen from the other side
of the building, of course, we were comfortably on the far left.)
The
chapel, and the building at the top of the funiculaire works. That's where the
waiters and waitresses, high school students from Martigny, stay when they're
up on the mountain (more of them on weekends, obviously).
The
chapel
The
Lac de Salanfe, with the Tour Sallière looming above. Sallière (3219m
altitude) is the pointy peak left of centre, Le Dôme is to the right, and
L'Eglise (the "church") is at the right end of the massif.
The
narrator has passed through this way only a few times before, once in 1985 running
from Champéry to Salvan with two of daughter Marlowe's uncles, again in
January 1989 in lots of snow, and lastly in September 1991 -- after marching a
bunch of high school boys up from Champéry to overnight at the Cabane du
Susanfe, proceeding to the Dents du Midi summit the next day and depositing them
at the auberge de Salanfe, he had a good hour-and-a-half run around the lake and
up to the Col d'Emaney (snowy low point on the horizon), but cracked a couple
of ribs dashing back down in the twilight.
The
Col d'Emaney (2462m). Where we're not going on this trip.
The
dinner crowd at the auberge de Salanfe. We feel that we didn't need to bring all
the fancy evening wear.
Teny
and Joe being cuddly
The
Tour de Sallière across the lake, and the wide delta below the glaciers
at the far end
The
lake from our room, after one of our hikes a few days later. An extremely hospitable
environment.
Hiking
enthusiasts contemplating trips to this region may be pleased to view the next
few pages, and let anticipation grow.
 Feedback
and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative,  .
All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 4 August 2007, revised 02 November 2013.
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