We had previously hiked twice from the hamlet of Valpréveyre (1850 m), to the mountain passes of Malaure and Urine, both on the Italian border.

Today’s goal was Col de Bouchet (2626 m). The mountain pass is at the foot of Bric Bouchet (2997 m), an impressive summit dominating the landscape east of Valpréveyre.

The first part of the itinerary was the same as to Col de Malaure. We were surrounded by pristine nature soon after leaving the hamlet. At about 2000 m elevation, at the confluence of the Bouchet and Malaure torrents we came to a big mass of snow (It was early July!), apparently after an avalanche the previous winter. We hiked over it and saw our trail which dove into a larch wood. We reached a crossroads where fading yellow arrows instructed us to fork left. It turned out to be just a shortcut as we remembered that the crossroads with a signpost was a bit higher up.

We continued the ascent, heading northeast in open high-alpine terrain with Bric Bouchet in front of us. We passed another crossroads where we took the right-hand path. The left-hand path went to Col de Valpréveyre north of Bric Bouchet.

The last stretch to the col was very rocky and steep. We were lucky with the weather and could admire the panorama on both sides of the border. On the Italian side, there was a refuge named Nino Sardi just below the col. There was a half-tame ibex. The nebbia (fog/cloud on the mountain relief here)  reached the pass when we were already descending. We saw some marmots on the alpine meadow and met just a few other hikers.

We used the same itinerary back to our starting point, now via the signposted Malaure/Bouchet crossroads.