Section 1 of 5
4entries
The Alpage
A working altitude, not a view.
The alpage is high pasture used only in summer, and it is a separate agricultural unit from the farm below it — its own land tenure, its own buildings, its own eight or nine weeks. What follows is what that altitude allows, and what it costs to work.
Every entry in The Alpage
- Working altitudeThe alpage is high pasture used only in summer, and the whole calendar of the valley is organised around the weeks it can carry animals.
- TranshumanceThe herd is walked up in early summer and back down in autumn, on foot, along routes that have not moved much.
- Chalets d'alpageThe building on the high pasture is a workplace with a byre, a dairy room and a hearth, built from what was on the slope.
- Chevaline and SeythenexTwo communes on the same massif whose pastures sit at different altitudes and so keep different calendars.
The altitudes this section works in
2 217metres
Pointe d’Arcalod, the summit of the Massif des Bauges — École, Savoie
2 198metres
Pointe de la Sambuy, the high point of Faverges-Seythenex
1 400–2 000metres
The band the working alpages above Faverges sit in
460metres
The valley floor at Faverges, where the milk is collected