Gran Dent de Morcles

Epic tour in Valais. The destination of this adventure is the summit of Dent de Morcles (2969mt), which rises just above Martigny and offers a panorama of all the northern slopes of the most famous Alpine 4000.

It starts from the convenient parking lot of the Saillon thermal baths and heads to Leytron. From here it is a choice whether to tackle the whole tour pedaled, about 2600 meters of elevation gain (in which case I recommend waking up early and tackling the tour in summer with plenty of daylight hours) or as in my case to take the bus to Ovronnaz and then the Jorasse chairlift. It starts with a nice pedaled traverse that will be the only brief moment we will spend on the bike, then you will have to push it up to the fork and then shoulder-load it to the summit for a total of 900 meters of elevation gain (summit optional)

The summit is not doable by bike so I recommend leaving it 100 meters below. Now the fun begins! From the "summit" to the fork the trail is mostly challenging, fixed rock passages, steep sections and a few short sections where you can let go of the brakes. The environment is majestic and the views are crazy. From the fork the descent continues and will be endless where very flowing and fast sections alternate with very technical sections especially when entering the woods and the final part. The traverse that cuts through the mountain at an altitude of 2000 meters is mtb anthology.

Descent Difficulty: the flowing parts are S2 while the technical sections are S3 however with a few passages that reach S4.