le Monolithe de Sardières

One and a half kilometres after the village of Aussois, leave the departmental road that leads to Sardières to take the direction of the "Monolithe de Sardières". Narrow and winding, this road crosses over about 3 km the Plan Bois forest, ending at a car park laid out near the Monolithe, gateway to the Vanoise National Park. In a small clearing the Monolithe appears, a fine needle of cargneule in warm ochre-yellow tints, 93 m high, called l'ouille in dialect (from late Latin acucula, diminutive of acus, needle), first climbed in 1957 by two men of the Maurienne, Messrs Pasquier and Cognet. Around the forest, other cargneule rocks of surprising shapes also emerge: pillars, towers, caves, overhangs. Very widespread in upper Maurienne, cargneules are arranged in this sector in a broad band that can be followed, at the base of the Dent Parrachée, from the gorge of the Saint-Pierre stream at the exit of Aussois to Termignon.

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