Col du Laurichard
I guarantee you that the Col du Laurichard is unlike any place you have ever seen. Mom picked up a brochure for a hike in this valley when we skiied in La Mieje in February. She must have showed this to me every week: "They say that over 2000 species of wildflowers can be found in this valley! We have to go here!," she would say. Well, we made it there. Mom's dream came true.
We were on our way to the Queyras. We had a little cheese and fruit and decided to take a "little stroll" (Dad's code word for a half-day mini-hike) for a picnic. We pulled into a random parking lot and Viola! It ended up being the Col du Laurichard from the borchure! The brochure copy wasn't marketing hype: the trail meandered through valleys and hillsides too numerous to count, and across alpine meadow after alpine meadow. Each square inch was coated in flowers: Blues, purples, pinks, magenta, white, bright yellow, pale yellow. every color from the Crayola crayon box you can name was represented there. About halfway through the hike you reached a hilltop overlooking a waterfall that dropped 2000 feet to the valley below. It was gorgeous. Mom sang songs from the Sounds of Music and wondered how she could incorporate all these flowers in her gardens at home while we napped in the fields.