Covalou Gallery, from Fiernaz

Access

From the unable to parsehâtillon motorway exit, follow the signs for Cervinia until you reach Antey-Saint-André. Following the regional road to Cervinia, 300 metres from the Hôtel des Roses, cross the bridge over the Peson stream and immediately afterwards take the Fiernaz municipal road on the right. After about 400 metres, just outside the village, park your car near the bridge over the Marmore stream.

Introduction

A short walk up a sunny slope to the entrance of the underground canal that feeds the Covalou hydroelectric power station.

The work on the Covalou hydroelectric power station, of which the canal is a part, was commissioned in 1926, and was started in 1923 by the company E. Breda on behalf of the Marmore Hydroelectric Company. The power station exploits a catchment area of almost 150 square kilometres with a maximum flow rate of 10 cubic metres per second. The canal brings the water used by the Maen power station to which are added the derivations from the Marmore, Chamois and Souverou streams, the Petit-Monde stream intake that crosses the valley with the Fiernaz siphon, the intake on the Antey stream and the one on the Promiod stream. The canal ends at the Promiod tunnel loading basin, which is the size of a dozen cottages, from which the penstocks start, with a drop of more than 500 metres to the power station. 

Description

We cross the wooden bridge and immediately afterwards follow the track left by the diggers up through the meadows. You follow it to the edge of the forest, where you come to the bed of a stream that was disrupted by the 2000 flood and subsequent embankment work. We ascend the dry bed adventurously for about 5 minutes until we reach the cairn that marks the beginning of the old path on the left. Follow it, rapidly gaining height with a few hairpin bends until, after coming out of the forest, you reach the dry wall containing the Fiernaz siphon. Shortly afterwards, at the crossroads, follow the path on the right that climbs and, passing at the foot of a pylon, you arrive at the uncovered rascard that can be clearly seen from the start. The path climbs up through the pastures behind it, on the watershed between the villages of Fiernaz and Buisson, passes at the foot of a monumental juniper tree, under which a small chair has been carved out of a pine trunk, and then leads to the right until it almost enters the valley from which it turns away with a sharp bend. Immediately afterwards, it passes a dilapidated barn with the wall containing the conduit behind it. It climbs up the slope in several hairpin bends, shaded by a few sparse trees, until it reaches the entrance to the tunnel, half obstructed by a landslide, where the water captured by the Petit-Monde stream flows. Following the path that climbs to the left, one arrives in a few minutes at the base of the huts used in the construction of the tunnel canal. From this little terrace, you can enjoy an enchanting panorama that ranges from Mont Meabé, to the white dot of the Gillarey chapel, nestled between the rocks and the blue sky, to Mont Pancherot and the Matterhorn. 

External links

• http://www.enel.it/PaesaggiElettriciHtml/PaesaggiElettriciHtml/aosta/percorso1/impianti4.asp