Col du Sabion

3 points of interest

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  History and historical trail

  Castérino valley

  Long ago, Italian lumberjacks worked in the spruce and larch forests which border the entire valley all the way to St-Dalmas-de-Tende. The trunk they cut down were then taken to the bed of the mountain stream where they constituted a temporary dam behind which the water level rose. The lumberjacks then broke the dam down and the trunks were carried away by the water. The floating operating came to an end at Saint-Dalmas-de-Tende. The trunks were then loaded onto 4 wheeled carts pulled by mules and taken to the St Dalmas sawmill or the two sawmills at Tende. When the railway arrived at the start of the 20th century, they were sent to Piedmont, to the detriment of the local sawmills.

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  Fauna

  Chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra)

  Whether it is the stocky forest chamois or the slender rock chamois, this animal is the athlete of the high slopes. Thanks to its powerful muscles, it can climb 400m upwards in 5 minutes and springs over ravines in 7 to 12m bounds. Snow patches and glaciers are its playground: its hooves adapt to the terrain and cushion it from shocks, its spurs serve as brakes and the sharp edge of its hooves are like crampons on the harder areas of snow.

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  Mountain pass

  Col du Sabion

  A traditional passageway, Col du Sabion towards Val d'Entraque (Italy) occupies a strategic position on the watershed.

  While international tensions were growing prior to the Second World War, the col was the subject of engineering work commissioned by the Italian government: dry-stone barracks, semi-buried bunkers, telephone lines and barbed wire fences which today, with hindsight, appears to be a manifestation of hostile behaviour.