Tour of the Truc de Tsantelèina

Description

Notes Loop tour around the Truc di San'Elena starting from the Benevolo refuge. Car access. Leave the A5 motorway at the Aosta Ovest tollgate and continue along the state road (SS 16) towards Courmayeur as far as Villenouve, where you take the regional road 24, leaving the road to Valsavaranche on the left, and drive up the entire Val di Rhemes to the hamlet of Thumel, where the asphalt road ends and you park your car in the large car park. Description. From the car park in Thumel, take the path that climbs towards the Benevolo hut, always climbing at a moderate gradient and with a view of the Granta Parey. The path comes to cross the dirt road that climbs to the hut near a spectacular waterfall. Take the road and immediately cross the bridge over the Dora di Rhemes (near the old Roman bridge). Just beyond the bridge, you will find the path again, intersecting the road several times to cut several hairpin bends. In about 1h 30 minutes you reach the Benevolo refuge, pass in front of the building and take the path that tends to descend towards the Dora di Rhemes, which you cross over a bridge. The path begins to climb, reversing direction until it reaches the Soches mountain pasture. The path reverses direction again and continues to gain height at a low gradient until it reaches a hairpin bend where path 13C branches off. Take the latter and continue to climb at a moderate gradient, passing the only point where care must be taken as it is exposed (chain) to reach the foot of the moraine front at the base of the Granta parey. The path begins to climb along the moraine deposits until it reaches the top of these, turning left at a fork (signpost on a boulder on the right). The path first loses height rapidly, then with a long traverse in a direction orthogonal to the axis of the valley, it skirts the southern slope of the Truc Sant'Elena until it reaches the Dora di Rhemes, where you turn left and parallel to the course of the torrent, return to Benevolo and from here to Thumel.