I seem to have good luck catching Ibex with the camera. The trick seems to be due to timing, early spring is a good time as the Ibex favor the terrain just below the melting snow as it opens up new grazing for them. These photo’s are of two different groups. The first group are near Zinal in the canton Valais Switzerland and the next set were in the Vanoise. Some of the Swiss photo’s were used by version of Linux as their cover art, that particular version had a codename of “Intrepid Ibex” and the Swiss team involved wanted artwork from Switzerland.

At one time this was a threatened species but various breeding programs and protections have helped them make a good comeback and they’re a familiar sight in the remoter parts of the alps.

Tags: ibex

I’m in the Vanoise national park right now in France, it’s a wilderness area sandwiched between some of the most developed ski areas in Europe, Val d’Isere, Courcheval, La Plagne etc. It’s actually the first French National Park and covers an area close to the Italian border where it borders the Italian Grand Paradiso National Park forming an area of over 1250 km². Together they’re one of the most important wilderness areas in the world and home to some otherwise rare species.

It’s regarded as a bit early for alpine walking generally now but as I’ve commented before, I think if you pick your routes it can be pretty interesting and you often have the mountains to yourself. I’d planned to make an ascent of a small peak called Petit Mont Blanc, I was optimistic I might work out why it was called that as I don’t get it from the map or looking from the bottom.

I’d parked down near the Refuge le Repoju at around 1700m and took the track up the hillside crossing forest and steep gullies. It’s a good track actually, climbing quickly but not too vertically so I was soon up in the higher open ground where I found this herd of Ibex.

It’s not unusual to see Ibex around here, although they’ve neared extinction in the past they were protected in this area while it was royal hunting estates. The longest horns, an amazing one metre in length, belong to the mature males and evolved for protection again predators like wolves. To get an idea of size, they’re around a metre tall and weigh around 100kg.

As you can see from the photo’s, it’s ideal conditions for the Ibex, who like to be up between 2000m and 4000m, but not exactly clear skies and sunshine. The main problem is snow of course, either underfoot making it difficult to walk or in enough volume to present an avalanche hazard.

And it was the snow that stopped my ascent, it got progressively more difficult to avoid the ever larger snowfields and by around 2400m it was clear the summit wasn’t going to possible so I turned around and came back.

As I descended the weather improved slightly with some broken sun, it wouldn’t have made any difference to the ascent but it did make the descent more pleasant.

Looking down to the refuge near where I’d left the car. The flower is  a liverleaf, once thought to help with liver problems.

Finally, I heard some shrill calls on the wind and looked up to see a pair of golden eagles, for the second time I regretted not bringing a longer lens today. The 85mm I had on my D90 just doesn’t have the reach for this at all. I managed to get a couple of frames but the distance wasn’t ideal, you should be able to see that distinctive white marking under the wings though. Like all of the photo’s, if you click on them you’ll get a bigger version.

Tags: Golden Eagle | Hiking | ibex | Vanoise

It really didn’t look very promising today, the forecast was bad and there was a lot of low cloud. Yesterday had been awful really, raining all day and not really worth going out. So, meeting David again, we had a slightly late start with a vague plan to walk up the valley and explore a couple of options there.

We started with a quick side trip to the copper mines, in season they run tours around here but neither of us had been here before. It’s about 100m climb up from the main track and then just a straight walk back down. The weather was not brilliant but it looked worth continuing so we set off for the cabane de Petit Mountet with a plan to have lunch there.

I got some water in my boots the other day from the snow high up, fortunately they didn’t get so wet that flowers grew in them.

It was in the afternoon after we’d left the cabane that the most amazing thing happened, but you’re going to have to read on for that……


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Tags: Bouquetin | Cabane du Petit Mountet | Hiking | hiking in Switzerland | ibex | steinbock | trekking | trekking in Switzerland | walking in Switzerland | Zinal