Mont Avic natural park

The Mont Avic natural park was established in 1989 to preserve the resources ofthe high valley of Torrente Chalamy (Champdepraz); in 2003, a part of the great valley of Dondena was also included in the protected area, reaching up as far as the mountain ridges of the Val Soana and the Valle di Cogne.

The Park stretches over 5,747 hectares and borders on the Gran Paradiso National Park and has been declared a Site of Community Importance and a Special Protection Zone.

Nature and landscape

The  Mont Avic natural park has a number of extremely picturesque landscape features and settings that have only been marginally modified by man.
On the slopes of Champdepraz, the harsh mountainous environement has limited farming and sheep-rearing and slowed mass tourism. The forests of Val Chalamy, ravaged over the last centuries by mining activity, have for the most part regained their original characteristics and today offer visitors some views of rare and spectacular beauty.
The mountain landscapes in the high valley of Champorcher are more gentle with vast meadows that are home to ibexes, chamois and marmots.

More than a third of the protected area is covered by vast forests of mountain uncinate pine, Scots pine, larch and beech.

Inside this area, you can also enjoy some interesting natural features, such as:

• a vast number of lakes marshlands and peat bogs unrivaled in number and extent in the Aosta Valley
• harsh geological formations
• rare local Alpine flowers, plant groupings on the green stone substratum
• the most common Alpine animals, as well as an enormous variety of insects.

How to get there

• A5 motorway, coming off at Verrès and taking the SS26 national road towards Aosta - then the regional road n°6, via Fabbrica, as far as Champdepraz - and the local road to Chevrère.
• A5 motorway, come off at Pont-Saint-Martin - SS26 national road towards Aosta - regional road n°2 from Hône to Champorcher and then  to Chardonney, that is also along the Alta Via n. 2 trekking itinerary.

Mont Avic visitor centres: